I Hate Weddings
by Gertrude2034
Summary: House enjoys a one-night stand at a wedding, but isn't prepared for the long-lasting and unexpected consequences that result. A story of love, loss, grief and healing. Sad and angsty, be warned. M for sex scenes and adult themes.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Time setting is not especially important in this story, but I have stolen the clinic patient House sees in "Maternity", season one. That doesn't mean much because after that, it veers firmly away into my own little world. And I have also messed with the timeline to suit my own plot which only the very astute will notice. Old team, because I like writing them better. Hope you enjoy.

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* * *

**Chapter 1**

_September_

"Have I ever told you how much I hate weddings?"

"What, other than the three times you told me as my future wife was walking down the aisle towards us?"

"Yes, other than that."

"Actually, apart from my own, I don't think I've seen you at any weddings."

"Exactly. I hate weddings. I'm only at this one because you're too pathetic to be able to bring a woman as your date."

"I'm here alone because Paul is my colleague and it's Julie's parents' anniversary," Wilson corrected sharply. "And _you're_ at this wedding because you were invited, House. All the senior staff at the hospital were, as well as half the staff from every other hospital in the city." He smiled. "Maybe I pay Paul too much."

House grumbled and took a sip of his beer.

"What's this I hear about you becoming an OB?" Wilson asked, changing the subject.

"What?"

"I was told that you'd taken on a clinic patient for prenatal care and delivery."

"Oh, that. Yeah. Have you seen the plasma screen those guys have in their lounge?"

Wilson shook his head. "I knew there was an ulterior motive, I just didn't realise it would be as pathetic as a big-screen TV."

House ignored Wilson and instead pointed with his chin to a group of women on the far side of the bar. "Who's that?" he asked.

The wedding guests were in that awkward part of the celebrations, after the ceremony but before the reception, when the bride and groom were whisked away to strike model poses in front of some striking architecture, or industrial machinery, or something similarly arty, and the guests all had to pretend to be having fun paying for their own drinks and mingling with people they didn't know while waiting for the free stuff to commence.

"Who's who?" Wilson asked. House's random gesture could have been meant for any one of a dozen people on the other side of the room.

"The brunette. In the red dress."

"Nice pick," Wilson said admiringly. "But I have no idea. Must be one of the bride's friends."

They both watched for a while before the group shifted, and the brunette was hidden behind another gaggle of women at the bar.

"I don't mind the bridesmaid she was talking to," Wilson said casually. "The blonde."

"Have you ever been to a wedding and not get laid?" House asked, unaccountably annoyed by Wilson's apparent ease with the whole thing.

"Actually," Wilson began thoughtfully, "my second marriage – on the wedding night we didn't—"

"No, no, no, no." House screwed up his eyes as if by doing so he could block out what Wilson was saying. He _so_ didn't want to hear about his sex life – or lack thereof – with any of his wives.

"—weddings are tiring, you know," Wilson finished.

"Well, that'll teach you not to have so many," House replied flippantly as his phone rang and he pulled it out of his jacket pocket to peer at the screen. It was Chase, calling about the current patient no doubt, causing House to sigh. He wondered if the call might just get him out of the reception.

"House." He walked a few steps away from Wilson, over to the bar, leaning against it as he listened to Chase give a rundown on their current patient's status.

". . . and so far all the tests are negative."

"And?" House asked, irritated by their lack of progress.

Chase began going through options and House leaned more heavily on the bar, only half paying attention to Chase's commentary. His eyes scanned the room and he discovered that the brunette he'd noticed earlier was looking at him. When their eyes met she smiled shyly. House held her gaze, even as he began to issue instructions to Chase on the phone. The woman quirked her eyebrows and gave him a quick, but dazzling grin, then looked away. House was left in no doubt that they'd had a "moment".

"So are you going to come in?" Chase asked.

House took in a deep breath. Suddenly he wasn't in quite so much of a hurry to get out of the rest of the wedding. "Nah, call me back when you've done the MRI."

* * *

--

"Have I ever told you how much I hate weddings?" Lara complained. Her face was twisted into a scowl, but she kept her voice quiet so her comment wouldn't be overheard.

"I guess it's a good thing you're not going to be having one then."

Lara gave her friend a disbelieving look, although she wasn't really shocked by the comment. Janet was like that.

"Oh, Lara, I'm sorry, but it _is_ time to get over it. It's been three months and it's not like you lost any deposits," Janet shrugged. "I'm your friend, I can say stuff like that, and I never liked Josh by the way. Just be thankful you're not a bridesmaid." She squirmed in her teal satin sheath dress awkwardly. It was an ugly dress, but Janet's blonde hair and green eyes actually managed to make it work, even though she was obviously uncomfortable. "I love Larissa," she continued, "but what is it that happens to normally sensible, intelligent women when they become brides? Where does their taste go?"

Lara had to give a quick grin, not least at the irony of Janet's words. She still remembered Janet's own wedding and the baby pink frou frou she'd been forced to wear. Wisely, she didn't mention it. "Trust me, I've been counting my blessings ever since I came to that first fitting for moral support."

"I still don't know how you got out of it," Janet muttered. "Get me a champagne," She ordered, pointing at the bar. "It's the least you can do."

Lara chuckled but did as she'd been told and hurried over to the bar to order them both drinks. While she was waiting to be served she noticed the guy she'd shared a smile with a few moments earlier. The crowd around the bar hid her from him, but she was able to observe him talking to another guy who was also very good looking. Lara considered them both for a moment before deciding it was the first guy who really caught her eye. He was tall, and carrying a cane, but it was black with a silver cap and she wasn't sure if he needed it for walking or if it was just an affectation. His tuxedo fit him perfectly and he had just the kind of build Lara liked: tall and rangy, but broad-shouldered and – going by the slight stretch in the sleeves of his suit – had nice, solid-looking arms. She also had to admit that she loved the contradiction of the unshaven face and messy hair with the neat, beautifully tailored tuxedo. Something about it made her want to know more about him.

The bartender served her quickly, and although Lara would have liked to have hung around for a while longer watching, waiting to see if he'd smile at her again, she had to return to her friend.

When she returned, she found Janet had been joined by their friend Melinda. The three of them – plus the bride, Larissa – had been friends since high school. They used to call themselves the four musketeers, but as the years had gone on, friendship ties had faded. Melinda had moved interstate and inevitably drifted away from the group – now they usually only saw her at special occasions like this. Janet was married with two children and therefore had a totally different life to Lara, but they still caught up regularly. Lara and Larissa had remained best friends, had even both been engaged about the same time and joked about a double wedding – although Lara always made it _very_ clear that it was a joke. But then things just hadn't turned out the way she'd expected.

"Melinda!" Lara greeted her friend warmly. "Long time no see!"

"Lara!" The two women hugged, Lara carefully still holding the two glasses.

"We're going to have the best fun tonight," Melinda said, giggling. "I've already had three champagnes."

Janet rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you two get to have fun while I have to sit on the bridal table, next to Paul's brother. I get one night away from the kids and this is how I have to spend it. How can Paul be a doctor while his brother looks like he just got out of jail? Do you think he's adopted?"

All three women laughed and Lara sent a quick prayer of thanks to the powers that be for the wonderful female friends she had in her life.

"Well I think, Janet, the only way to deal with it is to catch up with Melinda," Lara encouraged and handed Janet a glass. "I'm sure he'll look better after a few of these."

Janet had only taken one sip of her drink when a guy holding an expensive-looking camera walked over, looking cranky.

"You're the missing bridesmaid!"

Janet didn't flinch. "Am I?"

"We've been looking for you for half an hour. You're needed for the photos."

Janet rolled her eyes again, a withering, disdainful look that Lara felt she had perfected. She swallowed her entire drink in one gulp and then pressed the empty glass into Lara's hand.

"Gotta go do my duty." Janet took a deep breath and with a quick, cheeky grin, followed the photographer through the crowd.

"Good luck!" Melinda called out before turning to Lara. "I'm so glad you got out of bridesmaid duty, I really thought I was going to be on my own here." Melinda linked her arm through Lara's and leant in confidentially. "We're going to have fun tonight – we'll dance to the cheesiest songs, drink too much champagne and kiss someone really inappropriate. There's a room full of doctors, who knows, maybe we'll bag ourselves a husband."

Lara shook her head. "I don't want a husband."

Melinda's face fell and she looked contrite. "Oh, Lara, I'm sorry. That was insensitive of me. Have you heard from Josh?"

"Not since I gave back the ring. About three months ago."

"Well in that case it's definitely time for us to get out there and kiss boys. I think you should kiss two, to make up for lost time with that stupid ass who obviously didn't know a good thing when he had it."

Lara smiled, but her heart twisted painfully. She didn't need reminding of her appalling taste in men. But she shook away the feeling, determined not to let Josh once again spoil her fun. "You're on," she said to Melinda, clinking her glass in cheers. "Maybe this will be the night that will change my ideas about weddings." Lara quickly drained her champagne as a way to stop herself from saying what she was thinking: _but I seriously doubt it._

_

* * *

_

--

Later, at the reception, when the guests were milling around waiting for the bride and groom to arrive, House strategically positioned himself near the striking brunette he'd noticed at the bar. He stood behind her, close enough to smell her perfume, but that was acceptable, because everyone was pushing forward, all keen – for reasons House did _not_ understand – to watch as the bride and groom entered the ballroom of the five-star hotel where the reception was being held.

"Introducing, Dr Paul and Mrs Larissa Kimble!" The MC's voice boomed around the room, but was quickly drowned out by shouts and cheers.

The brunette in front of him made a disgusted noise and leant over to a friend standing next to her.

"Ugh, Larissa changed her name."

"What's wrong with Kimble?" House asked amiably, seeing a way to start a conversation, and causing both women to turn to him.

The brunette's friend gave him a suspicious look, but she smiled warmly. "Nothing, I guess," she said with a shrug. "It's more the whole giving up your identity thing. She's a forty-year old successful businesswoman. It's a dumb choice."

House decided that kicking things off with his take on feminism would not enhance his chances of getting laid at any point in the near future, so for once, he bit his tongue.

"My name's Greg," he said instead, switching his cane to his left hand and holding out his right to shake.

"Lara," she answered, shaking his hand. Her hand was warm, but not sweaty, and very, very soft. House was immediately filled with ideas about places other than his palm that he'd like to feel it.

"Melinda," her friend interjected, and House shook hands with her too, although she was too short, too blonde and her figure too boyish for House's taste. In contrast, Lara's dress, cut deeply low in front, revealed the swells of breasts that he could tell would overflow even his large hands. _Yummy_.

Wilson appeared at his side carrying flutes of champagne in each hand.

"Two glasses of champagne and two lovely ladies, what a nice coincidence!"

House rolled his eyes, but couldn't help noticing that despite the cheesy line, both women were going all gooey and giving Wilson appreciative glances as they each accepted a glass from him.

"I'll be right back."

Sure enough, before House had been able to choke out something banal about the "lovely ceremony" – he was fully aware that he sucked at small talk – Wilson was back with two more glasses of champagne and handed one to House. House didn't really enjoy champagne – there were far better beverages when it came to getting drunk fast – but for the sake of the evening he accepted the flute and tried to sip slowly, letting Wilson continue to work his charm on the two women. House stayed mostly quiet, just cutting in with the occasional remark when the conversation seemed to be veering into maudlin, gushy, overly romantic comments about the wedding, and he noticed that Lara kept giving him glances, blushing once when he caught her out.

It turned out the four of them had been seated on the same table and House thanked his lucky stars for that. A quick glance told him every other person around the table would be an interminable bore, so, even if things didn't go well with Lara, at least he'd have something to look at.

Then Lara made a crack about putting all the lonely singletons and weirdos in the far corner so as not to spoil the view for the happy couple and House laughed genuinely, amused by her joke and pleased to know she was single. He noted that Wilson didn't do anything to correct that assumption, just giving Melinda a broad grin. Sure enough, Wilson and Melinda were getting on like a house on fire and as soon as the plates were cleared, they were on the dance floor. House had seen his friend in operation on a few occasions and he had to admit Wilson was very smooth. Just a few bars into the first song, Melinda's arms wound around his waist and then they were grinding their way through all the cheesy eighties hits being rolled out by the DJ.

Dancing had never been House's strong suit, but when it came to seducing a woman, a socially legitimate excuse to press bodies together had its advantages. Only now, because of his leg, he was left without that avenue as a possibility. The thought made him slump further in his chair and think about faking a 911 call from Chase. Lara had been talking earnestly to another guy at the table since Wilson and Melinda had left for the dance floor and House realised he'd managed to down three glasses of champagne in the past ten minutes. He was telling himself it had been ridiculous to get his hopes up anyway – Lara was very attractive, a less perfect version of Catherine Zeta Jones, and she'd been the subject of many admiring glances through the night. The idea that she'd be interested in him was probably laughable.

Only he didn't really feel like laughing.

"Would you like to get some air?"

Lara's voice cut into his depressing thoughts and House sat up straighter, realising as he did that he was quite a bit drunker than he'd thought. Fresh air was probably a good idea. "Sure."

Once they were out on a sparsely occupied balcony, Lara downed the flute of champagne in her hand in two long gulps. "Thank God!" she said, putting the glass down and walking on wobbly legs over to the railing.

House cocked a questioning eyebrow and downed his own champagne before following to lean on the rail next to her, close enough for their arms to be touching.

"Jeez I hate weddings," she said quietly, her voice almost lost in the night air.

"I thought women were genetically predisposed to love weddings. You know, together, forever, all the _romance_." He shuddered as he said the word.

Lara gave a short laugh. "Yeah, yeah. All that crap's fine. It's the having to make pleasant conversation with people you'd never usually talk to in a million years that gets me. I think that guy next to me is possibly the most boring person on earth."

"I thought you two seemed to be hitting it off," House said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

"I'm a good liar," Lara said with a grin.

"Oh, so you're a lawyer then?"

Lara giggled. "No, worse, I'm a publicist."

"What's that? Lying to journalists for money?"

"Pretty much."

"What is it that you lie about?"

"Books. I'm a publicist for a publishing company. I lie about how charming and easy-going authors are and I lie about how good their books are."

House smiled. "Sounds like fun."

"Yeah, mostly it is." She shrugged. "What do you do?"

"I'm a doctor."

Lara rolled her eyes. "Of course you are. I should have known – the room is full of doctors. So, much lying involved in your line of work? I would guess it would be more truth-telling oriented."

"Oh, you'd be surprised."

Lara shivered. Despite the mild September day the bride and groom had enjoyed for their wedding, night had brought a cool breeze that held an icy hint of winter. House knew he should offer her his jacket, but he wasn't going to deliberately subject himself to discomfort until he knew whether or not there'd be anything in it for him.

"Are you a friend of Paul's or a friend of Larissa's?" Lara asked. It could have been House's imagination, but he thought she moved slightly closer to him.

"Paul's. Although 'friend' is definitely overstating it. We happen to work at the same place and Kimble is a brown-noser who invited every senior doctor on the staff. You?"

"Larissa is my best friend."

House frowned. "Why aren't you a bridesmaid?"

"Because Larissa is a _good_ friend."

"Ah, I get it." House chuckled. "You got out of wearing one of those hideous green dresses."

Lara smiled, and looked up him from beneath hooded eyes and bit her bottom lip, considering him. "So, are you staying at the hotel tonight?" she said eventually. "I have a room here."

House stood up straighter, leant his cane against the balcony railing and began shrugging off his jacket. "Here, you look cold."


	2. Chapter 2

Lara knew she'd had way more champagne than was wise. And kissing and groping a guy on the balcony just outside the doors of a ballroom filled with a couple of hundred people who included friends and relatives was just a little out of character for her.

She wasn't sure if it was his cologne or simply the amount of champagne she'd had affecting her senses, but he _smelt so good_. With his jacket around her shoulders, his arms around her waist and his scratchy, stubbled face kissing her neck, Lara actually felt her knees go weak. Maybe it was just a side-effect of the lack of male pheromones in her life in recent months. The break up with Josh had been enough to put her off any kind of male company for quite a while. But that didn't mean she didn't still need sex. Perhaps just one night, with a sexy, single doctor was just what she needed.

But still something held her back. She was trembling, not sure if it was from the cold, the kissing or just nervousness.

His hand slipped from her waist to her ass, cupping her cheek and pulling her pelvis against his. Lara groaned and then pulled back. "Hey," she said, realising at once how breathy she sounded. She tried hard to control her shivers. "I think we need to go back inside."

He stepped away from her, clearly unhappy with her statement. "Why?"

"It's rude to leave a wedding before the bride and groom."

"I've never really been one for the social niceties."

Lara chuckled. "I get that. But I guess what I'm saying is . . ." she took in a deep breath. "I'm not quite ready to go upstairs with you yet. And if we keep doing this, that's what's going to happen."

"Ah."

"And it _is_ cold out here."

"You said you're _not quite_ _ready_ _yet_. Does that mean it's still on the menu of possibilities for tonight?"

Lara thought the look on his face was cute. It could have been sleazy, or desperate, but instead it was kind of yearning, perhaps even lonely. He was obviously as bored of the wedding as she was, only he was being less polite about it. She liked that. Liked his confident swagger, cut-to-the-chase remarks, and the witty, spiteful commentary he'd been keeping up all night. Added to that was the broad shoulders, stubbled jaw and blue eyes. The cane thing she barely noticed.

In an instant her nerves vanished and her decision was made. He was a good kisser. It didn't necessarily mean he would be a spectacular lover, but it wasn't a bad start. If nothing else, having him hold her close and continue to kiss her would be very nice indeed.

She smiled. "I would say, yes, it's still on the menu. Perhaps after they cut the cake?"

He grinned at her and stepped back, letting her lead the way back into the ballroom. He kept a hand on the small of her back as they made their way back to the table and Lara was glad of it, glad that he kept the connection with her without pawing her in front of everyone.

The guy she'd been talking to at the table looked kind of disappointed as he watched her sit down again. Lara had no doubt it was clear that something had gone on outside, her hair was probably a mess and she was still wearing House's jacket. She quickly shrugged it off and handed it back to House before pouring herself another champagne and downing it in a few gulps. House copied her, drinking a full glass in what looked like a single swallow before refilling both their glasses and draining that one, too. He then fell silent, sitting back, looking bored, sleepy and drunk, his easy banter from outside suddenly evaporated, leaving a conversation gap that her earlier table companion tried valiantly to fill.

"So Lara, before you, uh, went outside, you were telling me about your trip to Europe. Did you get to Prague?"

Lara almost felt sorry for the guy. He was still giving it his best shot, even though she felt that watching paint dry would be more interesting than struggling to keep up a conversation with him. She made quick work of the fresh glass of champagne in front of her and was pleased when House refilled it again. Suddenly her _proper _decision to not leave before the bride and groom seemed silly. Larissa and Paul were good friends, but with two hundred and fifty guests in the room, they'd never notice if she wasn't there when they cut the cake – and they were taking an awfully long time to get around to that; it was nearly midnight. Besides, she was seeing them again tomorrow, before they headed off on their honeymoon – she was driving them to the airport. And even more besides, Lara hated weddings. Why would she voluntarily stay at one when she could be getting her rocks off with a sexy stranger? It had been too long . . .

Lara drained another glass of champagne and then turned to House with a grimace. "You know, I'm suddenly not feeling well."

House looked mildly shocked and very disappointed. She gave him the slightest wink and watched as his eyes lit up again. "I think it's that problem I was telling you about on the balcony." She turned to the others at the table who were all now observing their conversation – all of them too exceptionally dull to manage one of their own. "Dr House was kind enough to take an interest in a small health problem of mine."

"Oh, you mean your peripheral vestibular disorder?" House asked.

It was Lara's turn to be surprised, but she covered it by looking down and rummaging in her evening bag, thinking that it might just look as if she was searching for pills.

"You need to lie down immediately. The problems with your balance will make you feel nauseous otherwise," House said, his voice authoritative and stern, even though he slurred slightly.

Lara nodded, realising that she had definitely met her match when it came to bullshitting. He was spinning the story beautifully – had taken her lead and run with it. It was all she could do not to sit back and applaud.

"Yes, I think you're right. I don't want to throw up at the table."

Lara had to make a serious effort to stop herself from smiling at the horrified look on the geek guy's face.

"Come on, I'll help you up to your room. Make sure you don't vomit along the way," House said, rising and taking her elbow.

"Thanks, doctor," Lara said, "I really appreciate it. Good night all."

As soon as they were outside the ballroom, Lara broke into giggles.

"What's funny?" House asked, seemingly genuinely puzzled.

"What's funny?" Lara asked, gasping for breath through her laughter. "You really don't know?"

Before she could so much as _think_ anything further, House grabbed her shoulder with his free hand, roughly pushed her against the wall, and kissed her. Her mouth was open, still giggling, and he pushed his tongue straight inside. Her giggles died instantly and Lara leant her head back against the wall, her hands rising to run through his hair and hold his head close to hers. She couldn't help but groan as she felt his hand run from her shoulder downwards until he cupped her breast, gently feeling its weight. The fact that they were just a few feet from the main doorway to the ballroom had completely slipped her mind.

"Lara?"

Melinda's voice came swimming up through the haze, bringing Lara back to herself. She twisted her hands in House's hair, pulling his mouth from hers so she could see over his shoulder, finding herself looking straight into her friend's rather bemused face.

"James and I went back to the table and they told me you'd gone to your room because you were sick," Melinda said, trying to sound cross and failing badly.

"Oh, I was . . . it's just . . ." Lara trailed off, knowing it was very clear what was "just" going on.

"No problem, I wanted to make sure you were okay, that's all." She grinned. "And it seems you're perfectly fine."

House hadn't turned around or looked up at all since Melinda's interruption, he simply moved his kissing to the side of Lara's neck. His scratchy chin was rubbing against the soft skin of her throat and Lara was equal parts aroused and embarrassed – the fact that he hadn't stopped making out with her while her friend stood there was mortifying but also kind of gratifying.

"Yes, I'm definitely fine," she said, trying hard to keep her voice as normal as she could.

"I'm pretty fine too," Melinda confided. "James and I are heading upstairs. I was going to wait until after the cake, but if you two can get out of it . . ."

Lara bit her lip to stop herself from making any noise as House bit a tiny piece of skin just at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, rubbing his teeth together gently before licking the hurt away.

"Larissa won't notice," Lara said once she was again capable of speech. "See you later. Come on." She pulled away from House, putt an arm around him and steered them straight for the elevators. Melinda's chuckle carried down the corridor after them and Lara gave House a light slap as he continued to try to kiss her neck.

"Stop that," she said, looking up at him as sternly as she could manage as they walked clumsily along, arms around each other, but even she could hear the giggle in her voice. "That was embarrassing."

"That wasn't embarrassing. _This_ is embarrassing." House grabbed her hand and put it straight on his crotch, pressing her hand into a large and very evident bulge. "I couldn't turn around."

Lara giggled but then heard a loud and obviously annoyed throat being cleared, followed by a disapproving woman's voice saying, "_Some people!_ There's a time and a place." Without Lara realising it, they'd reached the elevator bank and when she looked away from House's face she found an elderly couple staring at her with frank dislike. Lara snatched her hand away from House's trousers and felt her face flame with heat.

"'S'okay, I'm a doctor and she's my nurse. She was jus' taking my temperature," House said, slurring his words and then breaking into a loud, evil laugh.

The old lady tut-tutted.

They were saved from further disapproval by the ding of two lots of elevator doors opening. Lara quickly hurried House into the one further away from the couple and pressed button twelve for her floor. She turned to look at him, finding him leaning heavily against the elevator wall, his eyes closed, humming something random under his breath.

"Hey, you're not going to pass out on me, are you?"

"No."

"You're not going to be too drunk to perform?"

"No."

"'No' you're not too drunk or 'no' you're not going to perform?"

"No," he said again, then chuckled.

Lara, feeling quite drunk herself, laughed. "Maybe what you need is another drink."

"Yes."

"Damn. Are you going to pay my minibar bill? 'Cause the drinks downstairs were free."

"I'll leave you a tip. I'll double it if you hit the stop button and go down on me right now." His eyes opened and Lara could see that he was half serious. She wanted to be outraged, but was surprised to find herself turned on by the idea and a jolt of heat stabbed into her groin at the vision his words provoked. Not that she was going to do it.

"I like my oral sex in private," Lara said, as primly as she could manage whilst releasing that she was swaying with the movement of the elevator. "And I like it reciprocated."

"Never said I wouldn't," House said flippantly, but then his eyes suddenly lost their glassy look and his gaze pierced her. "I'd be happy to."

He held her eyes and Lara felt as if all the breath had left her body. It wasn't just the thought of him doing that to her, she was sure it would be very nice, but something more. In a moment of drunken clarity, something told her that Greg House was going to become important in her life, she just wasn't quite sure why.

The elevator doors slid open and they staggered their way down the corridor to Lara's room. With each step, Lara felt the effects of the all champagnes she'd drained so quickly begin to weigh heavily on her until she could tell that she was weaving as badly as House was – and _he_ needed a cane to walk. She fumbled with the room key and finally got them inside, House immediately headed for the bed and fell on to it, backwards, with a loud sigh.

"God I hate weddings," he said, his speech still slurred.

"Me too. Wanna drink?"

"Sure. Whisky."

The cupboard beneath the television revealed a tiny Johnny Walker and a tiny Makers Mark and Lara made an executive decision to keep the Johnny for herself and poured him the bourbon. "No ice, 'cause I don't have any," she said, handing him a glass. He sat up awkwardly, looking foggier and drunker than ever, and took the drink from her hand.

"Bottoms up!" he said lewdly, then downed the drink, tossed the glass carelessly to the floor where it bounced and rolled under the bed, and then grabbed her around her hips. Before she knew it, his hands had raked up her dress, reached underneath and pulled her lacy thong panties down to her ankles.

Lara was left sputtering and coughing – he'd done it just as she'd swallowed a mouthful of whisky and she'd gasped in response. The liquid set fire to her throat.

"Hey!" she protested weakly.

"Hey what? Let's get this party started." House shrugged off his tuxedo jacket, undid his tie and took off his shoes and socks. Once that was completed, however, he seemed drained of energy and he fell back on the bed again, still in his shirt and trousers.

"You _are_ too drunk to perform," Lara accused, weaving unsteadily over to the other side of the bed, where she too fell onto her back, kicking her shoes off over the side. She didn't bother saying that she felt _she_ was too drunk to perform too.

"Am not," he protested, rolling on to his side and dragging her closer to him. He kissed her, and Lara felt a faint stirring of nausea as the whisky and champagne in her belly decided to fight each other for their right to her stomach's territory.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to concentrate on the kiss; despite his drunkenness he was still a decent kisser and one of his hands was roaming over her body, stroking and touching her through the fine fabric of her dress. Somewhere inside her head a voice told her it would probably be a good idea to get out of bed and hang the seven-hundred-dollar dress up, but it wasn't terribly convincing.

His hand was stroking her thighs and then between her legs, and Lara was quite relaxed and comfortable. Miles away from an orgasm, barely even a fraction as aroused as she had been out on the terrace, but it was all quite pleasant. She heard a zipper and felt his weight press over her, then his penis battering around between her legs, trying to find home base. She put a hand between them and guided him in, noting that he wasn't really all that hard. Nowhere near as hard as he had been just a little while ago in the elevator foyer. Maybe the alcohol was affecting him as much as it was affecting her, Lara thought. She drunkenly tried to count how many glasses of champagne she'd had, but her brain wasn't up to that kind of complex math problem. He thrust for a while, but kept slipping out of her, and Lara was finding it less pleasant the longer he went on. She was about to ask him to stop when he went suddenly still and she opened her eyes again to look up at his face. He was either having an orgasm or a heart attack and she wasn't quite sure which.

"Did you just come?" she asked, her voice sounding loud and accusing in the room that a moment ago had been filled only with the sound of his heavy breathing.

He rolled to her side and lay on his back, chest heaving with effort. "Yeah, but that was fucking pathetic. Sorry."

She knew she was supposed to console him and say things like _nevermind_ and _it's fine_, but she was actually cross. She'd wanted to have one night of good sex and it had turned out like this?

"Yeah, it was pretty pathetic," she said, her irritation clear.

"I'll make it up to you."

"Now?"

"I jus' need a lil rest . . ."

Lara folded her arms, not sure whether to demand her satisfaction, ask him to leave, or just go to sleep. Just a moment later, loud snoring started up next to her. Lara sighed, figuring there wasn't going to be any further lovemaking in her near future. Not unless she took matters into her own hands. She thought about that for a while and then decided she couldn't be bothered.

Instead she got up, hung up her dress, and had a quick shower. She spent time scrubbing her face – she'd put on a lot more makeup than normal and she hated the feeling of it. No matter how drunk she was, she always took her makeup off. She went back to bed, crawled in naked beside House's snoring frame and pulled the quilted bed cover over them both. Within minutes she was asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Morning came, and with it an extremely unwelcome five-thirty wakeup call. For a moment, Lara was confused; a strange bed, a loud ringing noise, the weight and heat of someone lying next to her. Then it came back to her, slowly, the thoughts pounding into her mind along with the pain of a savage headache.

Firstly and most importantly, she had to get up and drive Larissa and Paul to the airport so they could catch the plane to departure point for their honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean. She decided she'd focus on that for now and deal with the rest later.

The man next to her snorted in his sleep, clearly the ringing phone was having no affect on him whatsoever. Lara reached over him and answered it, not bothering to hold the receiver up to her ear; she simply picked it up and dropped it back into the cradle.

She rose and grabbed jeans and a sweater from her overnight bag.

_Larissa owes me big time for this._

She was just shoving her feet into runners when a sleepy, croaky voice called out from the bed.

"Where are you going?"

"Have to take Larissa and Paul to the airport."

"You driving?"

"Yeah. My car's here."

"You'll still be over the limit."

His simple words crashed through her as she stood, unsteadily, on her feet. _He was right. _She was absolutely still drunk. It had been less than five hours since she'd fallen asleep, nowhere near enough time to process all the alcohol in her system.

"Shit."

"Call them a cab then come back to bed."

Lara grabbed her cell phone and dialled her ever-reliable limousine service, the drivers who were always especially patient with her delicate, tantrum-inclined authors.

"I'll be right back," she promised House, heading out of the room and down to the foyer. Along the way she begged, pleaded and cajoled for a driver to come urgently and by the time she saw Larissa and Paul standing sleepily with their arms around each other, she'd arranged for a car to arrive in fifteen minutes.

She quickly explained her dilemma and the solution she'd organised, and thankfully the couple were amused and not annoyed. Larissa was very chatty, needing reassurance about how lovely the night had been, and Lara guaranteed her that it had been the _best wedding ever in the entire world_. She nodded politely at the stories Larissa had to tell, and avoided letting slip that she'd skipped out early. After just ten minutes, the car pulled up outside and Paul began dragging their luggage out to it. Larissa pulled her to one side and whispered urgently, "I heard you picked up!"

"Yes, I did," Lara said. "He's up there now."

"Good girl," Larissa said approvingly. "That's why I didn't make you be a bridesmaid you know, I wanted you to be free to find yourself a good shag."

I wouldn't say _good, _Lara thought to herself, trying to remember the details. There had been sex, she was pretty sure. But it had been pretty lame, from what she remembered. Or maybe he'd rocked her world and she was just too smashed to remember it.

"Yeah, yeah," she said instead, giving her friend a push towards the door. "Go on, get yourself out of here. You've got a lot of shagging to get on with yourself."

"I want to hear all the details when I get back."

"Go!" Lara ordered, pointing at the car. "Call me to let me know you got there safely."

Lara watched her friend and her new husband climb into the limo. She smiled, genuinely happy for Larissa. Paul was a kind, generous, optimistic kind of guy. Perfect for Larissa. The kind of man Lara wished she could be happy with. But no, men like him were just too _nice_. Perhaps her shrink would tell her she was being masochistic, but Lara had decided it was more that she liked a _challenge._

_Challenges that fuck their co-workers just months before their wedding and don't bother to hide the evidence, _a voice reminded her. Lara shrugged it away.

The limo driver gave her a quick wave before disappearing into the car. Lara sighed. She might have dodged being a bridesmaid, but by the time she paid for the limo and her room, she knew the whole wedding would still be an expensive experience.

The little coffee cart in the foyer was just starting up as she made her way back to the elevators and on a whim she ordered a couple of lattes to go. She had no idea if he drank coffee, but the way she was feeling, she could probably drink both anyway. She desperately wanted to go back to sleep, but now she was up, it was probably a good idea to get moving, get the guy out – _his name was Greg, wasn't it? That was right, Greg House, a strange kind of name_ – and try to forget the whole sorry night.

_I really, really hate weddings. _

* * *

--

While Lara was out attending to her friends, House got out of bed, took off the very crumpled shirt he'd ended up sleeping in, had a quick shower, brushed his teeth with Lara's toothbrush, then took two Vicodin and had to lie down again. His hangover was going to be bad when it hit, but it wasn't quite there yet and by medicating now there was every chance of heading it off at the pass.

He could have got down on his knees and worshipped her when Lara returned holding two steaming cups of coffee and offered him one.

"By all that's good and holy this is the best coffee I've ever had," he said after he'd taken a few sips.

"Really?" Lara asked mildly. He couldn't help but notice that while he was naked and back in bed with the sheet pulled over him, she perched on the edge of the bed, making no move to take off the clothes she'd put on to go downstairs.

"Really. Either that or I'm still drunk."

"You're still drunk."

"So are you."

"Yes, probably." Lara shifted, facing away from him. "We had sex . . . didn't we?"

House took a long drink from his coffee cup, wanting to avoid looking at her as he answered. He wasn't proud of what had transpired between them. "Um, kind of. I don't think it counts."

"Why?" she asked hesitantly.

House felt even more embarrassed having to make a definitive admission about his poor performance. "My, uh, aim wasn't . . . great. But I do remember saying I'd make it up to you."

"Oh?"

Lara seemed a little surprised. He wondered if she just wanted him to leave. But he couldn't leave her with that idea of him as a lover. It just wasn't _right_. "Get undressed and get back in bed."

She gave him a small smile. "I know it's early, but I was kind of thinking I'd pack up and head home. You can stay if you want, check out's at ten."

"Three hours, hmm." House leaned forward and lifted the coffee gently out of her hand, putting both cups down on the nightstand. "That might be just enough time for what I have planned."

He tugged on her arm, and watched as warring thoughts seemed to play across Lara's face. She was clearly undecided about whether or not to stay and House had to admit, he didn't blame her. From what he remembered of what they'd done last night – and his memory of it was pretty hazy – he certainly wouldn't be lining up for a repeat. But now that he'd gone out on a limb, trying to get her to stay, it would be even more demoralizing if she turned him down. He held his breath, waiting.

She smiled. "Hang on a sec. I need some Tylenol if there's going to be any heavy breathing in my future."

House found himself already starting to get hard, just from her smile. She returned from the bathroom and quickly swallowed some pills and a glass of water. She stripped off her jeans and sweater, revealing pretty, demure white lace panties and bra.

"Leave those on," he said, as she put her hands behind her back to undo the bra's clasp. "I want to take them off."

She smiled again and knelt on the bed, crawling towards him on her hands and knees. House admired her body. It wasn't movie-star quality and betrayed a less-than-enthusiastic commitment to fitness, but then, he wasn't exactly Brad Pitt himself. Besides, the curves were mostly in the right places, so he wasn't about to complain.

Over the next half hour or so, House made it his personal mission to reduce Lara Thompson to a begging mess. She'd acted as if she could take or leave spending more time with him, and he was going to teach her what she just might have missed out on. With his fingers and mouth, he mapped her body, learning what made her groan and tremble, building her to a pitch before she screamed out an orgasm that left her shaking and breathless.

He even treated her to what he considered the bonus extra: he gathered her into his arms immediately afterwards, holding her tight against his chest while her shudders subsided and she tried to reign in her breath.

"Oh my God," she said, eventually. "I guess everyone on this floor is awake now."

House chuckled. "Not a bad wake up call."

"Are you this good sober?" Her hand began to gently stroke his chest.

"There's a perfect balance, somewhere between sober and drunk, where I perform at my best."

"Obviously."

Her leg wrapped over his, rubbing upwards until her thigh brushed against his erection. "More?" she asked, looking up at him and blinking coyly. "I have condoms. Lots. I was hoping to get something good out of this wedding."

House laughed. "Go get them."

She scrambled out of bed, rummaged in the bathroom for a moment and then returned with a handful of foil packets. "You're optimistic," House said.

"Yep," she admitted. She handed one to him and crawled back on the bed, pulling the sheet back, her hands roaming over his body.

"Does your leg hurt?" she asked, studying his scar.

House felt himself get annoyed; he'd been hoping they could do this without having _that_ conversation. He tried to remind himself that it was natural she'd be curious, he would be too, if their positions were reversed, but it simply wasn't a turn on to talk about pain.

"Yes. All the time."

"Oh. So maybe I should be on top then?" she asked, her mouth quirking up in a smile.

House laughed. _Not at all what he'd expected her to say. _

"That's fine with me."

Lara dressed him and after more kissing, touching, and some powerful and long-lasting thrusting – for which he mentally congratulated himself – House managed to wait until Lara came again before he collapsed himself into shuddery, orgasm bliss.

They lay together, just touching, breathing heavily for a long while.

"You know what?" Lara said, breaking the silence.

"What?"

"I really, really want some bacon."

House smiled. "Yeah. Bacon. And eggs. And sausage," he added, his mouth beginning to water at the thought.

Lara pulled a face. "You can have the sausage."

"I want breakfast, more coffee and more sleep. And more sex," he added, giving her a sideways glance.

Lara lifted her head and looked at the clock. She flopped back in bed with a sigh. "We really should get moving."

"I have an idea." Without discussing it first with Lara, House picked up the phone, dialled reception and told them they'd decided to stay another night. The receptionist was pleased to accept their booking and House realised it was probably lucky for them that it was a Sunday. He then asked to be put through to room service and ordered them a lavish breakfast.

Lara grinned at him when he hung up. "Brilliant idea. I have no idea how I'm going to pay for it, but it's a truly brilliant idea."

"I'll pay the room tab," he said. "And the room service, if you'll go down on me while I watch hotel porn."

Lara laughed and her memory vaguely recalled him saying something similar the night before about the elevator.

"Will you fuck me in the bath?" she asked cheekily. "When I checked in, I promised myself a long soak in that big tub. I didn't think I'd have company, but I'm sure we'll both fit."

"Honey, I'll fuck you on every surface in this room," House promised. "We've got all day and all night."

* * *

--

Their day unfolded just as they'd planned. As soon as the room service guy left, Lara hung the "do not disturb" sign to avoid being interrupted by the maid. They both ate their breakfasts ravenously, then fell into bed again and slept for a few hours. In the early afternoon they woke, took a bath, and proceeded to make love in every place and every position Lara could imagine and that House was capable of.

At around ten that night, Lara decided it was time for her to go home. She was too sore and too sated to be up for anything more, and she had to be ready for work the next day. Leaving from the hotel in the morning and going home first would mean a very early start and besides, something about the moment just made it feel _right_ to say goodbye. House didn't protest when Lara announced her intentions, just nodded and bent his head to her brief kiss as she unwound herself from around him and got out of bed.

He lay there and watched as she packed her tiny bag, spending some time searching for the tiny panties she'd worn the night before; eventually finding them kicked under the bed.

When she finally had everything together, she leant over and kissed him, long, slow and deep. It was almost enough for her to throw her bag aside and crawl back into bed again, but the pleasurable ache between her thighs told her that she'd really had enough.

"Can I . . . Can I see you again?" he asked as she pulled away. Lara was touched by the tentativeness in his voice. It convinced her that he was a man of layers, more than just the brash, arrogant man she'd got to know last night.

She took in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. It was supposed to have been one night, one night of sex. It had already been two, kind of, she reasoned to herself. Agreeing to see him again was a risk, but then coming up to the room with him in the first place had also been a risk - and she had to admit that it had paid off handsomely. Eventually. Josh had been over three months ago now – it wasn't like she had to go into mourning for a year or something.

"I'd like that," she said finally. "Really," she added, to make up for the fact that she'd paused before answering. Then she sighed as her calendar popped up behind her eyes. "Oh, _damn_. I'm leaving on Wednesday for an author's tour. Going with this woman who's written a book about being the perfect parent or some crap."

"Some crap?" House asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I told you, lying for a living." They both chuckled. "How about I give you a call when I get back?" she suggested.

"Sure. How long will you be away?"

"About six weeks."

"Jeez. Where are you going?"

"LA, Chicago, New York, London, Singapore, Sydney—"

"I get it, I get it," House interrupted. "Anywhere humans might buy books before they decide to breed."

"Yup. It's a big marketplace."

"Hand me my pants," House said, waving at the black trousers lying in a heap on the floor. Lara did so and House reached into a pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flicked it open and grabbed a business card, handing it to her.

"Call me," he said, giving her a deliberately sleazy wink. "I'll drink just the right amount and we can do this all again."

Lara laughed. "I'd like that."


	4. Chapter 4

_April_

"House, stop complaining and just help," Cuddy sighed, handing him a chart. "The ER's short-staffed, full of patients, and we've had to go on bypass. Just help us clear a few and I'll let you off clinic duty next week."

House sighed. He wasn't going to object, getting out of a week's clinic duty was worth a couple of hours in the ER, especially given he didn't actually have a patient at the moment. In fact, he'd just been headed out the door for home when Cuddy had grabbed him and side-tracked him. He was now regretting both his decision not to leave via the back entrance and his uncharacteristic moment of altruism in sending his team home early. If he hadn't done that, they could be doing this instead of him and he could be home with a whiskey and afternoon television.

"Obese girl in curtain two with stomach pains, suspected appendicitis," Cuddy prompted, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the clamour of staff, patients and visitors in the crowded ER.

"Great. It's probably not appendicitis at all, she probably ate the family car and is about to vomit shredded velour and brake fluid all over me."

Cuddy didn't dignify that with a response.

House walked into the curtain area and shook his head at the sight of a large woman sitting beside an even larger teenage girl lying in the bed. The girl was obviously in pain, her face a grimace, but House wondered how he was even going to _find_ her appendix amongst the rolls of fat.

"I'm Dr House," he said abruptly, causing the mom to start and turn to him immediately.

"I think it's her appendix, Doctor, – the pain just started suddenly a few hours ago and she has been vomiting too," the mother said quickly.

"Well seeing as I actually went to medical school, how about we leave the diagnosing to me?"

He asked a few routine questions, what she'd been eating, what she'd been doing when the pain first started, whether she was sexually active. The girl seemed happy to let her mother do the talking, but the mom was seriously offended by House's last question.

"My daughter's only fourteen, she's never had sex!" she protested.

"Yeah, yeah," House muttered, heroically restraining himself from making a comment that given her size and thereby dramatically reduced lifespan, she should probably get a move on. He began to palpate the patient's stomach, testing for the typical rebound tenderness in the lower-right hand section of her abdomen indicative of appendicitis. As he pressed, the girl groaned, and House immediately felt what the problem was.

_Jeez, maybe I should have taken the clinic duty instead. _

"I need a nurse and a portable ultrasound in here," he said, pulling the curtain aside and calling out. "I have to do a pelvic exam on your daughter," he said to the mom.

"Oh, do you think it could be an ovarian cyst?" the mom asked, wringing her hands. "I had one of those a couple of years ago. Is something like that genetic?"

House ignored the question and stood back, pulling on gloves and waiting while the nurse who'd appeared organised the appropriate sheets around the girl. She was just positioning the girl's dimpled knees when she took a sudden, shocked, step back. "Jesus!"

House stepped to the end of the bed. "Christ!" he yelped, completing the nurse's blasphemy. "I need a catcher's mitt in here!"

"I'm sorry mommy." The girl sobbed, her first words since entering the ER, and threw her hands over her face.

House barely had time to support the baby's crowning head as the next contraction pushed its little body out into the world.

The nurse recovered from her shock and ran to get the necessary supplies and assistance, which meant, for a moment, House was alone with a brand new teenage mom, a very shocked grandmother and an obviously premature baby that didn't seem to be breathing. He grabbed a corner of the sheet to clean the baby's nose and mouth, the urgency of getting the little boy to breathe overcoming any thoughts of using something sterile or waiting for the nurse to return with the right equipment.

"Come on baby, breathe." House patted the baby gently, unable to help the encouraging words from slipping out of his mouth. His encouragement was rewarded by a shaky breath in and then a weak cry, which grew louder as the baby's lungs responded to their new environment.

The nurse returned with equipment and an entourage – no matter how busy they were, the sound of a newborn cry always attracted an audience in the ER. House quickly cut the umbilical cord, handed the baby to the nurse to be checked and cleaned, and had one of the other nurses who'd appeared massage the girl's stomach to bring on delivery of the placenta.

"So, gonna call him Jesus?" House asked the girl's mother brightly.

The mom gave him a withering look before turning to her daughter and delivering a sharp slap to her face. Everyone in the room turned to look and even House was a little taken aback by her violence.

The girl put a hand to her cheek in reaction to the sting, but said nothing. Then the girl's mother dissolved into tears and gathered her bulky daughter into a hug.

"Oh my girl, my little girl," she said through her sobs.

House took the baby back from the nurse, double-checking his reflexes and breathing. The infant needed to be sent straight to the NICU to be monitored, House decided, but for now he seemed to be doing well. The little boy wrapped a hand around House's finger as House held him and House was surprised by the jolt he felt in response. To cover it, he quickly handed the baby over to his mother and grandmother and headed out of the curtained area to go clean up and change his shirt which was now covered with rather gruesome-looking gore from the baby.

_I must be going senile in my old age,_ he decided.

* * *

--

"Well House, you handled that one," Cuddy said, sounding nonchalant. But House knew her well enough to know that she was praising him.

"Home run," he said, just as casual, but pleased nonetheless.

"Seeing as you're in the zone, how 'bout you look after this one too," Cuddy said, handing him a chart.

"Cuddy, since when did you end up as triage nurse?"

"Since our actual triage nurse refuses to deal with you."

House opened the file and, after a quick look, closed it and tried to hand it back. "Cuddy, despite my recent efforts, I'm not an OB. Call them."

"Funny, I _did_ call OB for this case but they've got a baby epidemic up there and no one can be spared." A wily, devious look crossed Cuddy's face, the kind that immediately made House nervous – _what did she know?_

"One of the OB doctors actually suggested you might be able to be the OB stand-in here while they clear the boards. According to them, today's baby isn't the first for you this week. Apparently you delivered a baby on Monday? Some woman you picked up in the clinic as a patient?" Cuddy quirked an eyebrow, her curiosity clear.

Actually House had been wondering why she hadn't mentioned it before now. "Well Cuddy—"

"It's a rather interesting thing for my head of diagnostics to be doing, wouldn't you say? _And_ I didn't see it on your billing," Cuddy continued. "Then again, if you were even remotely up to date with your paperwork . . ."

House sighed and pulled the chart back, turning and heading for the curtained area as a way to escape Cuddy's rant about his administration skills as much as anything. He'd expected the OB guys were going to exact payback for his scam to use their lounge at some point, and he didn't need eyes in the back of his head to realise that Cuddy would be gloating at his capitulation. Still, a few hours acting as the OB stand-in in the ER was probably worth the months of lounge use he'd scammed. He'd find a way to get them back anyway. _Two can play at that game._

"What are you doing here?" The woman in the bed demanded as House pulled aside the curtain that had been pulled around her for privacy and walked into the cubicle, still looking down at her chart. As he looked up, she pushed her hair back from her face and he was torn from his revenge fantasies with the shock of sudden recognition. The hair was longer, her face was flushed and a little rounder than he remembered, and of course the pregnant belly was new, but it was unmistakably Lara. Beautiful, sexy Lara-from-the-wedding who'd said she would call and never had.

"Lara," he said, both shocked and pleased to see her again, his brain automatically replaying the time they'd spent together; it registered as both the worst and the best sex he'd had for at least a year. The _only _night of sex he'd had for at least a year. Looked like the same couldn't be said for Lara.

"Oh God, Larissa called you, didn't she?" Lara suddenly looked close to tears. "I told her not to."

House held up the manila patient folder in his hand. "I'm a doctor, remember? I work here."

For some reason that news didn't have the calming affect he'd expected. Instead, Lara went pale. "Oh, God," was all she said, giving him a look of pure horror. And then she curled onto her side, gasping with the pain of a contraction.

For someone as sharp as House, when he looked back later, he was embarrassed at the length of time it took him to process what he was seeing, connect that to what he was thinking, and look at the dates on the chart.

Lara was in premature labour, seven weeks early. She was in the ER so a determination could be made about whether or not to attempt to stop the labour chemically, or continue with the birth. Ostensibly that was what his job was – to make that call, prescribe the meds, or send her up to Labour and Delivery. Either way, as an ER patient she was destined to be his problem for a very short period of time.

_Except. _

Lara's contraction eased and she shifted in the bed. It took her a while to look at him again, and when she did, her eyes were filled with guilt, pain and sadness. If he hadn't just worked things out himself, her remorseful eyes would have told him everything.

House had no idea how to respond, no concept of what he should be doing. The only response he could find was to follow his ingrained medical training. So he continued with the exam as if his world hadn't just been turned on its axis.

"So when did the contractions start?" he asked, head down, making unnecessary notations in the chart, not moving an inch from his position barely inside the curtain.

"A few hours ago," Lara answered, a little breathless. "They were irregular and not very strong, I thought it was Braxton Hicks, but they've been getting stronger and more painful in the past hour. I also think my water might have broken. There's been no gush, just a fairly constant trickle, but I don't know what else it would be. That's why I came in."

Lara's matter-of-fact response helped House continue to live in his delusional world a little longer, pretending they were still doctor and patient. He flicked through the pages on the chart, noting that Lara had done all her prenatal care at PPTH with a Dr Boyd. He was amazed that they'd never run into each other, even by accident.

"According to this everything seems to have been going well up until now?" He still couldn't bring himself to look at her while she answered. Which was not at all like him – House liked to glare at patients as they answered his questions, all the better to ensure they might attempt to tell the truth.

"Yes, everything's been fine."

House swallowed hard, trying to remember what his next question should be, knowing that he needed to do an ultrasound to check the foetus's lung development, and yet desperately not wanting to.

Lara cleared her throat. "Do you think you should . . ." She took in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "Should you get another doctor?"

"Yes." House nodded curtly, pleased that at least one of them was still thinking logically, and turned and walked out of the curtained area without a glance back. He located Cuddy and pushed the chart into her chest before she could do more than utter a surprised, "House!".

"Patient wants a female doctor," he said, improvising wildly, "and that means I'm done in the ER for today." He walked briskly towards the corridor, which lead to the elevators, which led to his office, which contained a nicely concealed bottle of fifteen-year-old Glenmorangie. All that he could think about was how good the blissful burn from the whisky would feel as it made its way down his throat.

"But what about," Cuddy looked down at the folder she unexpectedly had in her hands, "Lara Thompson?"

"Her labour's too advanced to stop now," he called over his shoulder, "membranes have ruptured, so risk of infection's too high. Get her up to L&D and tell them to make room in the NICU."

* * *

--

Lara was relieved that she'd mentioned feeling nauseous when she'd been admitted, because they'd left a bowl next to her bed that came in handy when she threw up violently as soon as House left.

The noise attracted the attention of a passing nurse and within moments she was cleaned up, sipping water and trying to keep her focus simply on breathing in and out. Lara knew her indecision over the past months would come back to haunt her. She just hadn't expected it to be now. But then she guessed that was the thing with procrastination – you put things off in the delusional belief that the consequences might never happen.

But, of course, they always did.

Over the next hour, Lara managed to push away thoughts of House as other things happened quickly around her. Her OB, Dr Boyd, appeared briefly looking hassled and annoyed, peered between her legs and then suddenly Lara was in a wheelchair being moved to the labour ward. It didn't seem to matter how much she protested that her birth coach, Larissa, was on vacation with her husband, and that they had to understand:_ she_ _just couldn't have her baby right now_. The midwife laughed at her.

Larissa and Paul had planned their vacation so that they would be around when the baby was born and to help out afterwards. They'd both helped Lara through the pregnancy, and Larissa had been to prenatal appointments and Lamaze classes with her which, thankfully, they'd done early. Paul was the backup, if for any reason Larissa couldn't make it, he promised to be there. Initially Lara felt it would be strange to have her best friend's husband at her baby's birth, but he _was_ a doctor – although she guessed oncologists probably didn't have that much to do with vaginas – and he _did_ work at the hospital she intended to give birth in, so it was a practical decision if nothing else.

The fact that the baby's father was also an employee at the same hospital was another of those minor details Lara had managed to brush away. Over the past few months she'd had a number of occasions to marvel at her own powers of self-deception.

Another gripping pain held her and Lara gasped. She felt sick with anxiety. Of course, she'd felt anxious for months now, but this was an entirely new level.

_What had she been thinking? _

She was terrified of the prospect of giving birth without Larissa there to hold her hand. And that was the easy part! She'd signed herself up for a lifetime of being another person's sole provider, protector and parent.

_What on earth had she been thinking?_

Lara was settled into a rather bland-looking room with an intimidating amount of equipment lining the walls. Dr Boyd reappeared, still looking hassled. She quickly did an ultrasound and started talking to Lara about lung development and something called surfactant but that, at thirty-three weeks, the baby had an excellent chance of doing fine.

It was only then that it really sunk in to Lara that the baby coming early meant more than an inconvenience to hers and Larissa's carefully made plans. Lara's natural bookish nature had only increased in pregnancy. She'd read just about everything ever published about having babies, and that was quite a lot. She knew about lung development and about all the risks, diseases, infections and challenges a premature baby faced – somehow she'd just forgotten it all for a moment.

"Oh no," was all she could think to say.

Dr Boyd patted her arm. "Things look okay. Stay positive for now. I'll come back and see you when you've progressed further."

Lara felt like she was about to throw up again, but then another contraction hit and she cried out, not that it was really that painful yet, but something inside her needed to be let out and it wasn't just the baby. A midwife hurried in and grasped her hand, murmuring something comforting and Lara hung on to the words as if they were a lifeline.

A good mother would have been immediately worried about her baby, Lara knew. Instead, her first response was to feel worry and fear for herself. Then she'd seen House and, well, she still didn't want to think about what that meant yet. She knew how juvenile, how immature, she was being. Had been, all along, really.

Now her baby was paying the price for her procrastination.

Because Lara was sure this was payback.

* * *

--

In his office, House drank his whisky and stared out the window and tried to rationalise what had just happened. He was regretting handing the chart back to Cuddy, wishing he had something tangible to focus on, instead of sitting wondering if his child was right at that moment being born somewhere in the hospital.

Of course, he had no way of knowing for sure that it was his. The dates were probably about right, but he and Lara had had a one night stand – well, one night and one day. And if she'd had casual sex with him, who knew how many other guys there had been? House hated the fact that that idea was at first comforting and then made him feel deeply miserable. His overactive imagination couldn't help envisaging Lara with other men.

No, it wasn't so much the dates as Lara's reaction that had convinced him. She'd said she'd told Larissa not to tell him. Why would Larissa Kimble be banned from telling him that Lara was pregnant, if there wasn't some reason behind it? And that look in her eyes . . .

House realised he was grasping desperately for some kind of way to deny what he knew in his gut was true. He just needed to hear Lara say it. He downed the remaining whisky in one mouthful and rose from his desk, the final rays of the afternoon sun slanting across the floor.

In L&D, it didn't take long for House to find which room Lara had been taken to. Fortunately, having a reputation for being abrasive and unpredictable generally meant people let him do what he wanted to do without interfering. And his recent OB patient also meant that the sight of him loitering in a labour ward, leaning against a wall outside a patient's room, didn't provoke any reaction.

Dr Boyd was in there, doing an ultrasound, no doubt checking the baby's lung development. House had a good vantage point, they hadn't closed the blinds of her room yet, so things obviously hadn't progressed too far. He could see the ultrasound screen and the readouts from the other equipment without being immediately visible to the people inside the room. If Lara leaned forward, or Dr Boyd turned around, he'd be spotted, but for now he was safe.

He wasn't close enough to be able to clearly make out the baby's lungs on the monitor, but Dr Boyd didn't seem overly concerned. She seemed to be reassuring Lara and reached down to give her arm a squeeze. A midwife walked past House, barely giving him a glance, and opened the door. He quickly took a few sideways steps to shield himself from view and heard Lara cry out before the midwife hurried inside and the door closed again.

House sighed and realised that he'd probably not timed his visit particularly well. If he wanted answers from Lara, he probably should wait until she'd squeezed the kid out. It had nothing to do with empathy, sympathy or basic human decency, he'd just been around a few women as they gave birth and he knew their minds were usually pretty occupied with what was going on between their legs.

Dr Boyd exited Lara's room with one last smile that House felt was entirely patronising.

"How long til the baby gets here?" House asked Boyd abruptly.

"House? Why do you care?" Boyd kept marching at a brisk pace and as they passed the nurses' station House noticed that L&D definitely did have a full board, Cuddy hadn't been lying. Boyd was no doubt on her way to spread her special brand of condescension to the next poor woman.

"Clinical trial," House invented on the spot. "I need pre-term newborns. When can I get consent from the mom?"

Boyd gave him a suspicious look. "I haven't heard anything about a clinical trial."

"Well obviously," House said condescendingly. "It hasn't started yet. I haven't got consent."

Boyd rolled her eyes. "A while yet. She's only four centimetres dilated."

"And the baby's lungs?" House told himself he was asking that as part of his cover story – he could make up something about lung development being part of the trial's protocol.

"They're still a little underdeveloped, but at this stage I don't expect any serious complications."

"Right." House spun on his heels and headed for the elevator.

Back in his office, he looked at his watch. It was almost six. The smart thing to do would be go home, get a good night's sleep and deal with Lara in the morning.

"House? Saw your light was on. I thought you were going home?"

Wilson took a few steps into House's office.

"Want one?" House offered. He'd been about to pour himself a fresh whisky.

Wilson sighed. "Sure, why not." He fell heavily into the chair opposite House's desk. "Celebrating?" he asked.

"Celebrating what?" House frowned as he handed Wilson the glass of amber liquid. Despite the fact that House knew Wilson couldn't possibly know about Lara's secret, he felt a stab of guilty anxiety.

"Cuddy told me about your unexpected delivery in the ER this afternoon. Two in one week!"

"Oh, that." House was deliberately casual.

"Yeah. Caused a bit of a fuss apparently. You've won a few nurses over, too; Cuddy says they were all aflutter seeing you with the baby. I heard someone say you seemed reluctant to hand it over to the mom."

House snorted inelegantly.

"It's the whole men and babies thing," Wilson said, waving his glass in the air vaguely. "Cheers."

"Were you going to have kids with any of your wives?" House asked, suddenly curious about something he'd never before discussed with his best friend.

"What? Delivering babies made you all clucky?"

"No. No. Definitely not. Just . . . curious." House wondered what on earth had come over him. Was Wilson right? He remembered the little boy he'd helped into the world that afternoon, the strange warmth he'd felt when the kid had held his hand. Had he got to almost fifty years old and suddenly developed a desire to reproduce? He didn't think so. In his own way, he liked babies – always had. They tended to be pretty straightforward, especially as patients. They couldn't talk, so they didn't lie. They complained when there was something to complain about: hunger, pain, a full diaper. He didn't think that necessarily meant he wanted one of his very own. He liked monster trucks too, but he didn't want to _own_ one. Sure it'd pull in the ladies, but it would be a bitch to park.

Wilson seemed to think about the question and then simply shrugged. "I guess I always thought I would. It was always a yes when I talked about it with them but, to be honest, I never stayed married long enough for it to happen. Julie had a miscarriage, but things were already on the slide by then, that was just the final nail in the coffin."

"Oh." House hadn't known about the miscarriage, but it wasn't like he was going to tell Wilson that he was sorry.

The two men sat in comfortable silence for a while until Wilson drained his whiskey. "Well, time for me to go home."

"Yeah."

"Another day, another dollar," Wilson said in his cheesy way.

"Yeah."

"Are you okay?" Wilson's concern startled House out of the stare he'd settled into, gazing into the distance, unfocussed.

"Remember Kimble's wedding?" House asked suddenly.

"Yeah?" Wilson answered tentatively, starting to become concerned about where the conversation might be heading.

"Did you ever see that blonde again?"

"House, I was still married then!" Wilson spluttered, not very convincingly.

House gave his friend a doubtful look. "What, you mean you _didn't_ go up to her hotel room that night after she invited you?"

Wilson's blush was as good as an affidavit. "Well . . ." He shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

"So? You slept together that night. Did you see each other again?"

"We went out on one date," Wilson finally admitted. "But it didn't really work. Why are you asking about that?"

"Lara, the chick I hooked up with, was in the ER."

"Ah." Suddenly the strange bent to the conversation made sense. "Is she okay? Anything serious?"

"Nah. She's fine. It was just weird seeing her again." House knew it was a lie. He just wasn't sure how big.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning House turned up to the hospital early, his bleary eyes betraying the lack of sleep he'd had. He might as well have sat beside Lara and held her hand, he thought ruefully, for all the rest he'd managed. His brain had tortured him more than having his hand in any vice-like grip.

He had a patient, a thirty-two-year-old butcher with mysterious breathing difficulties, but they were still at that annoying early stage where he wasn't particularly critical and all the tests they needed to do were going to take the team all day. After a quick round up with them in the conference room, he sent his three underlings away to do his bidding and headed into his office.

House couldn't access the records of patients that weren't his, but he could see a list of names of patients who had been admitted to the hospital in the past twenty four hours. Sure enough, _Baby Lara Thompson_ had been admitted – using the mother's name with the word 'baby' in front was the hospital's code for a newborn that hadn't yet been named – just a couple of hours ago at 7.37am. In a distracted way, House calculated that he'd seen Lara around two pm which meant she'd had at least a seventeen hour labour, but he didn't think to summon any sympathy for her. The new patient was female.

Lara had a daughter.

_He_ had a daughter.

Shaking his head as if to dispel the idea, he reminded himself that he didn't know that for sure yet. He immediately got to his feet and headed down to maternity.

House opened the sliding door leading into Lara's room. She was sleeping, her hair lay plastered to her face, her cheeks still flushed from effort. He was annoyed with himself for still finding her attractive, but that was a minor thought. There were more important things to get sorted out. He leaned over her, deliberately making himself look as threatening as possible.

"Lara!"

Lara shifted in the bed, her eyes screwing up as if to deny reality. "Tired," she muttered.

"Lara, wake up!" House called again, his voice louder, sterner.

Lara opened one eye and obviously the sight of House looming over her came as something as a shock. She yelped, jolting awake, and her automatic reaction was to draw back away from him. Her yelp was quickly followed by a groan of pain as her body reminded her of what it had just been through and refused to make any movements of a sudden nature.

"No," Lara whispered, and closed her eyes again, seeming unable to cope with the multiple things her brain was trying process at once.

"Yes, Lara. Open your eyes. You _will_ talk to me. Now!" House's sleepless night, his irritation with himself over how much this was bothering him, and his anger with Lara for keeping such huge news from him, all combined to make him want to punch something. The best he could do was clench his fists and yell.

Lara bursting into tears in response didn't help.

"Is she mine?" he demanded, unswayed by her sobs. "Is she? Should I expect lawyers coming after me looking for child support?" House wasn't really concerned about the money, but that seemed to be the easiest thing to focus on for now.

Lara shook her head, but House didn't know if it was a "no" or just a general denial of the situation. Then, through her haze, something seemed to come clear. She grabbed House's arm and clutched it to her chest. "Greg, I had a little girl. They took her, she was having trouble breathing. Find her, make sure she's okay." She looked up at him, pleading, her breath hitching with tears.

He had no intentions of going to see the baby, but then it occurred to him that the one way to solve this once and for all was a simple swipe of a cotton swab inside the baby's cheek. Then, in twenty-fours, he'd know for sure. He belatedly realised he'd never have trusted Lara's answer anyway: it wasn't like she'd proven herself to be particularly honest so far, and it wasn't as if he'd stopped believing that everybody lied.

House removed his hand from her grasp with a look of disdain.

Without another word, he turned and left the room.

The NICU was crowded, a side effect of lots of babies being born at the same time was the corresponding spike in _sick_ babies born at the same time. It took him a minute, but eventually he found "Lara Thompson" on a name tag. His ingrained, automatic medical training noted several things. The baby was in an enclosed incubator against the wall towards the back of the intensive care area. The enclosed incubator meant that the baby was not intubated and, within the realm of the NICU, was not considered a critical care case – those infants were in open cribs where nurses and doctors could more easily get to them. The fact that she was against the wall also indicated that she must be reasonably stable, whatever breathing difficulties she'd had must be under control, because the more critical cases were in the centre of the room, around a hub of more sophisticated monitoring equipment.

House had collected a sterile test swab from a supply room along the way and he donned gloves before reaching into the crib to do the test, gently swiping inside the baby's mouth. He pocketed the result quickly, before anyone could see what he had done, but luckily the busyness of the NICU was helping cover his covert activities.

Intending to leave, House took one last look at the baby in the crib. She was lying still except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest, seeming as worn out as her mother from the process of entering the world. Her face, turned towards him, was screwed up, that look of protest that most newborns seemed to sport, but House couldn't help noticing her mouth – and how much it looked like baby photos he'd seen of himself. A thin upper lip and a flattened cupid's bow with a weak chin underneath. He thought it was a pity she'd got that from him, because she didn't have the option of growing a beard. Her eyes were closed but she had long dark eyelashes like Lara, and a wisp of dark hair over her head – not a trace of his gingery brown. It was a shock to see his own and Lara's features combined like that.

Without stopping to examine why, he put a hand back inside the incubator and gently rubbed the baby's stomach. She had on a tiny diaper and a number of monitor tabs were stuck to her torso, so the skin exposed to his touch wasn't that much, but House could have sworn her little baby face relaxed its scowl when he laid his hand on her. He stroked her gently, his mind carefully blank, the only thought that entered the deliberate haze of his brain was that at least she was a pretty-looking preemie; he thought some of her bunkmates looked like nothing so much as primate offspring with their hairy faces and skinny limbs. He stroked her cheek with the back of a finger and the baby stirred, her arms grasped blindly but managed to brush against his hand – not surprising really, given his hand was big enough to cover her whole torso. He quickly suppressed the smile that seemed to automatically rise as one of her tiny fingers briefly hooked over his.

"Nice job, daddy," a nurse said, smiling broadly as she came over to stand next to him, the baby's chart in her hand. "They love being touched."

House pulled his hand away as if he'd been stung. "What?" he asked defensively, aggressively turning on her.

The nurse visibly blanched.

"That's Doctor House, Alice," a voice called and Dr Boyd appeared a moment later. "He's doing a clinical trial." She turned to him. "And you _should_ have your ID on display, House. Especially round here. You go anywhere with a baby without your badge visible and you'll be shot. Again."

"I have to do the baby's obs," Alice said, her voice small.

"Agency nurses," Dr Boyd sighed, seemingly having no concern for Alice's feelings. "This is what happens when it rains babies."

"Right," House said, uncharacteristically lost for words. The moment he'd shared with the baby, the nurse unknowingly calling him daddy, it had all been too much.

"And I still haven't heard any details about this trial of yours," Dr Boyd said, giving House a curious look. "Perhaps you could give me—"

House began edging his way between the maze of cribs and medical equipment, towards the door. "You'll be the first," he said over his shoulder. "I promise. Just putting the finishing touches to the paper now." He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile and escaped quickly, wondering what the hell had come over him. He ducked into a nearby men's room to do his own swab, simply because he didn't want anyone else to see, and then stopped by the nurses' station to fill in the pathology paperwork and get the samples on their way.

The idea of going back to see Lara flittered across his brain. But now that he had the DNA, there really wasn't any reason to see her again until he got the results, and even then, only if they were positive. She was concerned about her daughter and had asked him to tell her how she was doing, but House was sure someone else would do that.

Setting his shoulders in preparation for twenty-four hours of hellish suspense, he headed back to his office.

* * *

--

Although she'd barely had a couple of hours of rest since the birth, Lara couldn't go back to sleep. When House didn't return after ten minutes Lara admitted to herself that she hadn't really expected him to. _Why should he do anything for her?_

She buzzed for a nurse and within minutes found herself in a wheelchair, seated next to her daughter's incubator. She reached inside and stroked her little body, overwhelmed by the feelings assaulting her. Despite her literary background, words honestly failed her. She had no way to explain to anyone how she was feeling. It was love, it was protectiveness, it was deep, gnawing anxiety wondering if she could ever be enough for the most beautiful, most precious little thing she'd ever seen.

"Lara?"

Dr Boyd appeared at her side. Lara found herself so besieged by emotion she couldn't speak, so she smiled weakly instead.

"How are you feeling?" Without waiting for an answer Dr Boyd grabbed the chart hanging from the end of the incubator and started giving Lara an update. "She's doing well. Breathing by herself which is the most important thing. We're still monitoring that very closely because sometimes these little ones have a habit of slipping backwards in the first twenty-four hours. We've also noticed that she's had the occasional irregular heart rhythm. I don't think it's anything to worry about just yet, it might something called a PDA which we can medicate her for, but I have booked her in for an echocardiogram tomorrow so we can take a close look at her heart and make sure there's nothing wrong. In the meantime we're keeping a close eye on that too."

Lara nodded, still feeling unable to speak.

Dr Boyd gave her a sympathetic smile and Lara figured she probably wasn't the first mute new mother Dr Boyd had encountered. "I'm going to keep a watch on her and Dr Hammond over there—" she pointed to another doctor across the room, "—is a neonatologist and he's going to be taking care of her too. Does she have a name yet?"

"Grace," Lara found her voice to say quietly. It was one of the girls' names she and Larissa had discussed, although they hadn't made a final decision. In the end, Lara had felt she'd know the right name when she finally met her baby, and it was true, she had, the little girl under her hand was definitely Grace.

"Grace Thompson," Dr Boyd repeated, writing the name on the chart. "That works well."

Lara nodded and smiled down at her daughter. A thought crossed her mind: _Grace House_ didn't really work, the two sibilants were too much. But then she hadn't really been considering that when she'd been choosing names.

* * *

--

House was in his office a few hours later when Dr Boyd appeared at his door.

"Dr House?" she called out, her voice uncharacteristically tentative as she walked inside.

House cringed inwardly. No doubt she was there to find out more about his supposed clinic trial. House could bullshit with the best of them, but now that he no longer needed a free pass to the NICU, he wasn't interested in making the effort.

"Do you mind if I sit down?"

House made a noncommittal noise that Dr Boyd obviously interpreted as assent.

"I'm very keen to know more about this trial you're running. I've been interested in neonatal cardio-pulmonary disease for a while and I did a paper on it that was published by the AMA last year." She crossed her legs and leaned forward, touching the desk with one elbow. "I know that you only tend to accept the most exceptional cases, but I was wondering if we co-authored, I could . . ."

As Dr Boyd went on, House became aware of a few things. Firstly, Dr Boyd was a rather attractive female. Until now, House hadn't had the time or inclination to notice such a thing. Her hair was mousy brown and straight, but glossy and thick. He guessed she was in her mid-forties, but she'd aged well. She had blue-ish green eyes and long eyelashes which, when she looked out from behind them as she was doing now, gave her a coquettish and flirty look. Her rack, although hidden behind a sweater Cuddy wouldn't be seen dead in, looked decent. Her skirt revealed shapely legs and slim ankles. Secondly, he totally recognised the pose she was holding. It was the kind of submissive, obsequious position that came with job interviews or asking someone out on a date.

". . . so I thought if I look out for the cases and page you when we get one that fits the protocol, perhaps we could work together on it," Boyd finished.

"Uh," House stalled. He hadn't expected this. He'd expected bluster and demands for explanation, not a coy bid for credit on a non-existent study. The universe was obviously looking out for him, House decided, because before he could respond Chase burst into the office with test results from the MRI.

"House, you need to look at this," Chase began before noticing Dr Boyd in the room. "Oh, sorry."

"Show me," House said, rising and holding out a hand. "Can we talk about this later Dr Boyd?"

Boyd rose up with a smile. "Of course. Let me know when you're free." She lowered her voice, although Chase could still plainly hear. "And please, call me Chelsea. If you want, maybe we could discuss it further over a drink?"

House just barely prevented himself from spluttering. If the last twenty-four hours hadn't been enough, now he was being asked out on a date by an attractive OB who'd delivered what was possibly his baby? It defied belief.

"Uh, yeah, sure," House muttered, turning to Chase and taking the paper from his hand. At least he hadn't blushed, House thought, as Boyd closed the office door behind her. With a look that threatened Chase with a painful demise if he so much as blinked the wrong way about what he'd just witnessed, House got down to business, focussing on the test results.

* * *

--

The rest of the day passed without incident and that night House managed to get a reasonably decent night's sleep. He dreamt about Lara, his subconscious making him relive their moment at the wedding, only in the dream, suddenly he and Lara were the ones getting married and his father was his best man, whispering omens of doom about his fitness as a parent, as Lara made her way down the aisle towards them with a crying baby in her arms. House woke up in a cold sweat and looked at the clock only to find out he'd only been asleep for about an hour. After that he slept through the rest of the night without any further nightmare visions, figuring it was because he at least now had the security of knowing the test results would give him a definitive answer one way or the other. Worrying about the outcome was futile. At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

The first thing he did when he got to the hospital the next morning was check with pathology, where a rather hassled technician told him that he would get the results in _twenty-four hours from when they had been submitted_ and that calling them to check the progress only delayed it further. House looked at his watch and figured that made it exactly 2pm – four hours away – and if it wasn't on his desk by then, they'd be learning what hassling was _really_ like.

His first couple of hours were taken up with a differential with the team, and then Wilson stuck his head in the office to see if he was free for lunch. House figured anything that stopped him from looking at his watch every ten minutes had to be a good thing, so he agreed – on condition Wilson paid, of course.

Going to visit Lara crossed his mind regularly throughout the morning but House ignored the impulse, reminding himself that it was all about the results. When the results came through, that's when he'd deal with Lara. _If_ he had to. It might well turn out that she wasn't his problem at all. House wasn't sure if he was just a born pessimist, but somehow he didn't think that was going to happen.

In the cafeteria, Wilson was boring him to tears with a story about that morning's board meeting when Chelsea Boyd came over to their table.

"Dr House!" she said, her voice excited. "You didn't answer my pages!"

House shrugged. She'd paged him a couple of times that morning, but he hadn't bothered answering, hoping she'd take the hint. Looked like she was the tenacious sort.

"I've got the best case for your trial."

Wilson frowned at House and House tried to dodge the look, knowing that Wilson fully understood that House was not, and never had been, involved in any trial.

"Really?" he asked, trying to sound disinterested.

"Yes, are you finished eating? Great, come with me." She put a hand under his elbow as if to help him get up from the table.

House gave her a withering look and she snatched her hand back with a muttered, "Sorry". But she didn't move away, and House could see she was almost trembling with excitement. "Seriously, you should come up to the NICU. We've got a preemie with polysyndactyly – with skull, atrial and ventricular defects."

Wilson let out a whistle, which was probably appropriate, House thought. It was extremely rare condition and the infant wasn't likely to live for too much longer. It wouldn't hurt to go have a look.

"Extra toes?" House asked.

Boyd nodded.

"Webbed fingers?"

She nodded again.

"Cool," House said.

Wilson sputtered about the appropriateness of the word "cool" to describe a baby's fatal condition, but House ignored him. He knew it would annoy Wilson if he went to spectate at the sick baby, especially given Wilson knew there was no study. He also thought Dr Boyd looked particularly attractive today, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of an unusual case – not unlike himself, House mused. Perhaps he might find time to have a drink with her after all.

_Once he sorted out whether or not he was a parent_, an annoying little voice inside him reminded.

"Let's go," he said, rising from the table and pushing thoughts of Lara to one side.

"What clinical trial are you doing House?" Wilson asked loudly, obviously intending to spill House's lie in front of Chelsea.

"Gotta run, Wilson," House said, grabbing Chelsea's elbow and steering them quickly away. "Tell you all about it later," he called over his shoulder.

In the NICU he took a cursory look over the deformed baby. Once Dr Boyd had filled him in on all the clinical details during their ride in the elevator his curiosity was satisfied. A quick look at the actual patient was more than enough.

House realised that he had conveniently forgotten that returning to the NICU meant returning to the room where Baby Lara Thompson was lying. Meaning adult Lara Thompson might be around too. He breathed a sigh of relief to find that Lara was not among the many parents littered around the NICU and he didn't want to seem to be giving one baby any particular attention, so he didn't walk over to the wall where he'd seen Lara's daughter yesterday.

"So, would you like to talk more about the study? About co-authoring?" Boyd none-too-subtly hinted.

House looked her up and down; her breasts were more on display today, a decent amount of cleavage peeking from a soft blouse. He looked back at her face and noticed she was blushing; she'd seen him check her out.

"Sure," he said. "Shall we get a drink? Tonight?" House figured they could have a drink, see how things went, and then to get out of the whole trial lie he'd just tell her that he lost funding or his grant wasn't approved, or something like that.

"Dr Boyd?" a nurse interrupted as House became aware of a shrill alarm sounding through the NICU. "We need you."

"Don't move," Dr Boyd said, smiling coyly at House. "I'll be right back."

"It's baby Thompson," the nurse continued. "Grace."

_So Lara named the baby Grace. _House inwardly shrugged. It was an okay name, probably not one he would have chosen, but then he hadn't exactly spent time thinking about it. He wondered if it was a name he would be saying a lot in the future, whether he wanted to or not. He stepped to one side so he could watch events unfold.

"Come on baby Grace, what's up?" Dr Boyd coaxed, and House noted that the baby had been transferred from the incubator she'd been in the day before into an open crib in the central hub of the NICU where she could be more easily monitored. That wasn't a good sign.

"Her heart rate's erratic," the nurse said, turning off the alarm and connecting Grace to a number of other machines.

"And the bradycardia?" Boyd asked, putting a stethoscope to her tiny chest.

"She's been pretty stable for the past hour, but there were a couple of incidents of A&Bs earlier this morning."

"Do we know the results of the echo yet? Does she have a PDA?"

"The x-rays looked normal," someone answered, "so she hasn't had the echo yet."

Suddenly a new and different alarm began sounding.

"V-fib!" the nurse called out.

"Start heart massage and charge the paddles," Dr Boyd said calmly. "Where's the mom? Lara?"

"She's been in here most of the morning, but she went to take a nap."

House watched, curiously detached, as the NICU team worked to restore a regular heart rhythm in the little girl. They worked efficiently, and stayed calm and quiet; no doubt the result of plenty of practice. He knew there was no reason for him to hang around, he felt sure that the conscientious Dr Boyd would follow up to confirm their date. But he couldn't help himself; he remembered the moment he'd shared with the baby the day before, and her tired-looking little face. He thought about Lara, about the evening of the wedding and how he'd found her such fantastic company. They'd talked about everything under the sun that night and the next day, and she'd been so funny and challenging and interesting. Not to mention hot as hell – he still remembered that plunging red dress she'd been wearing and how he'd had to work hard to remember to look at her eyes when they'd talked. And then later, how they'd made each other feel, in bed, in the bath, in the shower, and, once, both of them laughing at how ridiculous they were being, in the little lounge chair in the corner.

"Adrenaline."

"Still v-fib."

"Charge the paddles."

House had been genuinely disappointed when she hadn't called him as she'd promised she'd do once she returned from her work trip. He figured that he could have made enquiries, found her number, given her a call, but he decided that if she'd wanted to see him, she would have called.

"Clear."

"Asystole."

He guessed he knew now why he hadn't heard from her.

"Clear."

"More adrenaline."

House could see Grace as the team worked around her, lying very still, and he thought about when he'd touched her, in the incubator, and how her hand had tried to grasp his.

"Clear."

"There's no response, nothing at all."

"Flat line."

A moment of silence descended.

"Time of death, 1.23pm." Dr Boyd's calm voice announced, startling House back from his reverie. One of the nurses, he thought it was Alice, the one who'd possibly not-so-mistakenly called him "daddy", let out a little sob and another nurse put an arm around her.

After a moment's conversation with the nursing team, Dr Boyd walked back to House, looking shaken. "It doesn't matter how many times it happens, I never get used to that."

"What happened?" House asked. His voice was flat.

"We probably won't know until they do an autopsy. My guess is an aortic aneurysm from a PDA too small to see on the x-ray. We just couldn't get enough oxygen into her. Either that or a congenital heart malformation, especially when it happens so suddenly like that."

House nodded and then turned and walked out of the NICU. He had to walk past Grace to reach the exit and he deliberately avoided looking down at her little body.

"I have to go see the mother, but what time tonight?" Dr Boyd called out to him. "Do you want to call past my office and pick me up at six and we'll go round the corner to the tavern?"

House ignored her, walking out of the NICU, out of maternity, heading straight for the elevators, seeking nothing except the safe haven of his office.

As soon as he was there, his fellows surrounded him, each barking questions, suggestions, arguments. House felt like he was in a bubble, their crabby comments bouncing off and away from him. Before he knew it, their argument had resolved; they seemed to have discussed themselves into a conclusion. All three faces looked up at him expectantly.

"Sure," he said, waving a hand randomly. "Do it." He had no idea what he had agreed to or instructed, but at that point it didn't really matter to him.

Cameron was the only one to give him a funny look, but then all three of them turned and left to do his bidding and finally he was alone, in peace.

Sitting at his desk, the first thing he saw was the white envelope from pathology sitting on top of a pile of other papers. He checked his watch, one-thirty-seven.

Bastards were early for once.

_And it was fourteen minutes since Grace had died. _

Like ripping off a bandaid, House figured the only way to do it was to get it over fast. He tore open the envelope and quickly scanned the results.

So much writing on a page where only one word was important.

_Positive._


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Thanks everyone for your lovely reviews. Sorry I haven't had a chance to reply personally for a little while, life has been hectic.

Just a warning: This chapter contains some sensitive content that might be upsetting to some people.

* * *

--

"What's wrong with you?" Wilson demanded, striding into House's office and sitting himself heavily into the chair opposite House's desk just as the Spring sunset was about to start blushing pretty colours across the sky. House had a medical text open, his reading glasses on, and was frowning in concentration; he didn't look up even as Wilson leant forward and prodded his arm.

Wilson had noticed that House had been holed up in his office for the entire afternoon, distant and uncommunicative, none of which was that unusual for House. He hadn't necessarily been overly worried. But when Cameron had turned up in his office at the end of the day, her concerned, frowning face told Wilson immediately that something was up and that that something would undoubtedly be related to House.

"First yesterday and now today. Are you just doing one of your I'm-diagnosing-don't-bother-me things, or is something else going on?"

House still didn't answer, simply turned the page in his book and kept reading. Wilson frowned, getting a glimpse of the content of the text.

"Isn't your patient an adult? Why are you reading about neonatal cardiology?"

House sighed and sat back in his chair, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "If I asked you to fuck off, would you?" he asked mildly.

"Depends on how many times you asked," Wilson answered smartly. "What's going on, House?" Wilson was shocked by the look that crossed his friend's face. It was almost as if he was in pain, but this was clearly different to the many other times Wilson had seen him in physical agony. He didn't even know what kind of label to put on it. "House, you're scaring me. What happened?"

House took a deep breath and swallowed and Wilson knew enough to stay quiet for a moment, to let House gather himself together before he spoke. Sure enough after a minute's silence, Wilson's patience was rewarded and the words came haltingly, stumbling, but as if they couldn't be held inside anymore.

"Remember yesterday? I told you Lara Thompson was in the ER – the woman I met at Kimble's wedding?"

Wilson nodded.

"Lara had . . . she had a baby. A girl, seven weeks premature."

House paused, letting the news sink in and Wilson quickly picked up what that meant. His stomach dropped as full realisation hit.

"Oh, House. That means . . . it's yours?"

House nodded almost imperceptibly. Wilson swallowed hard. Of all the things he might have expected House to talk about, this wasn't even vaguely on his radar. _House a father?_

"Are you sure?"

House picked up a piece of paper on his desk and waved it. Wilson couldn't read it, but it didn't take a genius to work out that it must be the results of a paternity test.

"Did you know?" Wilson asked, although he couldn't imagine that House would know about something like this for months without letting something slip.

"No."

"And have you talked to her? What did she say? Why didn't she tell you? Is this why you faked a trial with Dr Boyd in Maternity? Why did she . . ." Questions swarmed and multiplied in Wilson's head before something more fundamental clicked in. The book in House's hand. He held his breath as he asked, "Is the baby okay? Is she sick?"

"She died. Cardiac arrest. This afternoon. One-twenty-three pm."

House could have been talking about any patient, he could have been talking about the weather, his voice was so flat. Wilson, for once in his life, was speechless. So used to dealing with death, to consoling relatives and helping others deal with grief, this time he had absolutely no idea how to make things better. What do you say to a father grieving for a daughter he didn't know he had?

"House," Wilson whispered on a long, outward breath. "I'm so sorry." The words seemed trite and trivial, but Wilson had no idea what else to offer.

House shrugged, but for once didn't throw the sympathy back in Wilson's face. Wilson expected outrage, drama, anger, railing against the injustices of the world and the dishonesty of women, but instead this quiet, muted, _sad_ version of House was simply heartbreaking. Wilson felt close to tears himself, although he was determined to focus on House and not his own emotion.

"Have you been to see Lara this afternoon?" Wilson asked, deciding to stick to practicalities. "Have you talked about things with her? Do you know what she's going to do about a—" Wilson paused but then decided to forge on, "—about a funeral?"

House shook his head.

Wilson lowered his voice, asking gently, "Have you been to see the baby? Did she have a name?"

"She called her Grace. And yes. I saw her after she was born yesterday and today, when I went to the NICU with Boyd, I was there when it happened, when she . . . when she went into cardiac arrest."

No one but Wilson would have heard the catch in House's voice or noticed that he avoided saying the words, "when she died".

"But have you been to see her since? They say—"

"I know very well what they say, Wilson. I've read Kubler Ross. And all the others that followed in her wake. Steaming pile of crap that it all is."

Wilson wasn't sure whether to be relieved or concerned that House had finally slipped into the anger that he'd first expected.

"Well, whether or not you believe in it, you'll never be able to go back and have this moment again. Don't you think you should go see Lara? At least go and see Grace again while you can?" Wilson didn't want to push too hard, but he knew that without prompting, House could easily sit in his office for the next three weeks, doing nothing but reading cardiology studies in an effort to work out what killed his daughter.

"I've got a date tonight."

Wilson literally did a double take. "What?"

"What time is it?" House asked, forgetting his watch and looking around as if a clock might magically appear in his office.

"Around five-thirty."

"I think Chelsea's expecting me to meet her at six."

"Chelsea?" Wilson was baffled. "Chelsea Boyd? The OB? Why on earth are you going out with her?"

"She asked," House said simply.

Wilson let his mouth gape open for a moment as his brain tried to process all the conflicting thoughts it was having. House going on a date would, on any other day, be big news. The fact that he was going out with a female, age-appropriate doctor who Wilson thought might just be a good match, was astonishing. But it was just impossible. House could not go on a date just hours after his daughter's death. As strange as the circumstances were.

"House, you need to cancel. You've got bigger things on your plate today."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Of course I'm right." Wilson took a deep breath, not sure if he wanted to offer this, but knowing he needed to. "Do you want me to come with you? I could go down to Maternity with you, organise for you to see the baby. I'm sure we could come up with some story without telling anyone—"

House stood up suddenly, grasping for his cane. "No, I need to go see Lara. I have to sort this out once and for all."

Wilson didn't like the set look to House's face, the look that said that everything that was going on was a simple problem of fact and that there was a solution to it, the solution just had to be found. Wilson doubted there was any solution that would make sense, ever.

"I can tell Chelsea that you've been held up – take a raincheck on your behalf," Wilson offered.

"Yeah. Thanks. You can take her out instead if you want. I don't care if you fuck her."

Wilson winced, but forgave the crude remark.

"Give me a call tonight if you need anything."

House didn't answer, his office door closing quietly behind him. Wilson fell back into the chair, blowing out a huge breath. "Oh, crap, House. Crap."

* * *

--

Lara sat in her darkened, quiet hospital room, feeling as alone as she could ever remember. Lara wasn't particularly close to her family, had left home as soon as college had called and liked to think of herself as an independent, capable kind of woman. When her father had died a year ago, she and her mother had drifted even further apart. She liked company, loved her friends, but she didn't need to be surrounded by people twenty-four-seven. She'd travelled Europe on her own, stood alone at the top of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by lovers, visited the Taj Mahal by herself. All without regret.

But now, cradling her daughter in her arms, she felt she truly understood the emptiness of the word _alone_. The nurses had turned the lights low and closed all the blinds as if that would somehow lessen the impact. As if the shadows could hide reality. Grace's face now pale, her body limp and still. Lara had no idea how long she'd been sitting there; half of her dreaded the impending time when they'd come to take her baby away, half of her already wanted this over, wanted her old life back, wanted this whole thing scrubbed out by whatever giant eraser could achieve such a feat. She knew even thinking such a thought was wrong and her guilt almost overwhelmed her loneliness.

She still hadn't cried and she wasn't quite sure why.

She'd cried when Grace was born, but Lara knew that in part her tears had been relief that the ordeal was over. She'd cried when she'd seen House that one, brief time, the tears some kind of hormonal response she had no control over, as if a primal part of her brain had taken over, demanding _Where's my baby? Where's my baby? _over and over. Why it had been in response to him instead of some random nurse she still wasn't sure. She'd read somewhere that pregnant women instinctively respond to their baby's father; pheromones or something. Perhaps her body _had_ recognised a connection to him, after all, she had incubated fifty per cent of his genes for almost eight months.

Lara didn't look up when the door slid open quietly, refusing to raise her eyes from the bundle in her arms in case the nurse coming in could see in her face that Lara was ready for it to be over. It was the sound of the shuffling gait and thump of the cane that made her look up from Grace, knowing who she'd see and yet still surprised when her guess was right. He was not who she'd expected. She hadn't expected to see him again at all. She was sure he'd know what happened, and with no baby there was no child support claim to worry about. He had no reason to be there.

Except.

His child had died too. All those logical reasons for not telling him – all the ones she'd invented just to cover her own procrastination – swirled through her brain again as they had while she'd been in labour. They didn't make any more sense now than they had then.

"Greg," she said, because saying "hi" or "hello" seemed wrong somehow. Flippant, easy words that had no place in this dark, hated room.

"Lara."

He stood awkwardly, clearly unsure about what to do, where to put himself. There had been anger in his face when she'd first looked up, but it was gone now, replaced by something she wasn't sure she could name.

"Sit down," Lara said, curling her legs up underneath herself stiffly to make space for him on the bed. It would be easier to talk if they were sitting at the same level, she rationalised.

He sat down, lifting his bad leg with a hand to help prop himself up on the bed.

"Are you okay?"

Lara was so surprised by the question she almost answered, "I'm fine, thanks, how are you?". But of course she wasn't. She wasn't anywhere near fine and wouldn't even have been able to find it on a map.

"I called her Grace," she said instead.

"Yeah, I know."

"Have you seen her?"

House nodded. "In the NICU."

"Want to hold her?" Lara didn't give him a moment to even think about his answer, let alone say it, because she could tell that he was going to say no. She leaned forward, almost dropping the baby into his lap, causing him to have to grab for her, the motion instinctively protective. Because of course it didn't matter anymore if she fell. Or if her head wasn't supported properly. Which was probably just as well, Lara thought. She was sure to have done those things if she'd tried to be a mother.

"Ow." Lara wrapped her arms around herself and sank back into the pillows behind her. His elbow had knocked against her painfully swollen breast when he'd grabbed for Grace. He frowned at her. "My breasts hurt," she said with a shrug.

Lara kept her arms tightly pressed around her to keep from thinking about what they were no longer holding. Instead she watched him, wondering for possibly the millionth time what sort of father he'd be, what he'd have said if she'd told him as soon as she'd returned to Princeton after the book tour, what might have happened if she had. All silly ideas now, really, she thought.

For a moment he seemed to forget that she was in the room and she watched as he ran the back of his finger down the baby's velvet-soft cheek. He loosened the white knit blanket that she was wrapped in and looked at her body, a detached, clinical look on his face. After a while his expression softened and he stroked her belly, one finger tracing down the inside of a leg.

"Long legs," he murmured, almost as if he was thinking aloud.

"She would have been tall like you," Lara said, saying the words but refusing to imagine the picture of a tall, gangly, teenage Grace. Maybe she could have been a model.

Her words seemed to wake him from his daze and he quickly – and effectively, Lara noted – re-swaddled the baby, making Lara think that if she'd lived, at least Grace would have had one parent who'd have known how to look after her.

"Are you going to let them do the autopsy?" he asked.

The word made Lara feel physically ill, but she swallowed down a lump of bile that rose in her throat. She remembered at the wedding she'd been attracted by his blunt manner, the way he seemed to speak the inappropriate things everyone else was thinking. It had been fun. Then.

"Why?" she asked.

"We—" He brought himself up abruptly, changing his pronoun use instantly. "You need to know why she died."

"Dr Boyd said it was her heart. She had a heart defect."

"Yes, but what kind of defect? Why wasn't it detected earlier on your sonograms? Could something have been done? Is it genetic? Will it affect any future children you might have?"

Lara nearly laughed at that last question. Instead she covered it with a fake cough, knowing it sounded lame. "If you want to know, fine. You can sign the papers. I don't care. It doesn't matter anyway."

"What are you going to do about a funeral?"

"I was given some brochures." Lara pointed to a pile of papers on the cabinet next to her bed. "But I was just going to go with the standard procedure. She gets taken away and cremated. I can decide later what to do with the ashes."

House frowned. "You seem very . . . _pragmatic_."

Lara shrugged. She'd been called that before. She figured in the business world it was a compliment. In this situation she wasn't sure, but she searched inside herself for another style of response and couldn't find any.

"I can help with the costs," he said tentatively.

"Thanks, that'd be great. I'd saved up a little, as much as I could once I found out. Guess I can go shopping now instead. I have to call work, find out if I can come back a little earlier than I'd expected. I suppose I can also make some money selling all the baby stuff on EBay." Lara realised she was babbling, going on about ridiculous things, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. He was still holding Grace and the blanket around her had fallen away a little, revealing her face. She was small enough to sit perfectly in the crook of his elbow, small enough to be cradled in both his hands if he'd wanted to. She still looked beautiful, normal, and seeing Grace lying peacefully in her father's arms was doing strange, twisting things to Lara's gut.

Something about her expression must have given her away, because House leaned back. "Are you going to throw up?"

Lara shook her head. "No. Sorry. I'm just—" She trailed off and he seemed to understand that there was no way she could finish that sentence.

"Do you want her back?" he asked, his voice gentler than she'd thought it could be. He held his arm out, offering the tiny body he cradled so carefully.

Lara shrank back in the bed. "No. No. I've had her for hours now. I think . . . I think it's time."

"Okay." He shrugged and she was grateful he didn't make a big deal of it, didn't force her to take her again. "Am I on the birth certificate?" he asked, his voice neutral as he stood up. Lara watched as he laid Grace back in her crib.

"I haven't done it yet. Do you want to be?"

He tucked the blanket around her and then reached over to press the nurse call button beside Lara's bed. "Yeah, I think I do." He sounded surprised.

"Okay."

He sat back on the bed and Lara wondered what happened now. Their names would be together forever on an official piece of paper, a piece of paper that would exist in a database somewhere for as long as records existed. It didn't matter how much Lara wanted to pretend this had never happened, somewhere, somewhere, there was evidence. _At least Grace would have a permanent existence on paper._

"Thanks." Lara reached forward and impulsively grabbed his hand. She held it and they stared at each other, but Lara was either too full or too empty – she wasn't sure which – to do more than remember how blue his eyes were and to notice that his eyebrows were lopsided and contained a few long, curly hairs that could really do with being plucked. What his expression might mean, what he might be feeling? They were far too difficult questions for her to answer.

Once again, the door to her room slid open, and the woman who'd been there earlier, who'd sat with Lara for a while after the nurse had brought in Grace, returned. Lara couldn't remember her name, Dr Coggins or Dr Collins, or something, but Lara did recall that she was a psychiatrist. She felt House try to pull his hand from her grasp, but she stubbornly held on, wrapping her fingers more tightly around his, as if keeping his hand in hers would protect her from what was going to happen next.

"Dr House?" The other doctor was obviously shocked to find him there and, what's more, it was clearly an unpleasant surprise. She also took in the fact that they were holding hands and that seemed to add even further to her astonishment.

"Dr Collins," House said, managing to sound simultaneously embarrassed and disdainful.

"I didn't realise you knew Lara. Did Dr Kimble ask you to—"

"Greg is Grace's father," Lara announced. She was suddenly exhausted and didn't have the energy for dancing. House visibly flinched at her words, but for some reason tightened his grasp on her hand at the same time.

"I see." Dr Collins appeared to be working hard to assimilate a stack of new information quickly. "I'm sorry, I wasn't informed that you had a partner, Lara."

Neither Lara nor House bothered to correct her.

"How are you feeling?" She looked over at the crib, giving the baby a small, sad smile.

"Tired."

"Are you ready for Grace to leave?"

_Grace is already gone_, Lara felt like saying. _She was never mine in the first place._ Instead she nodded, biting her tongue to keep the bad words inside.

A nurse, who must have been hovering outside waiting for some kind of signal from Dr Collins, appeared and quickly whisked the crib away. Both Lara and House watched until it disappeared out of sight.

Dr Collins cleared her throat before speaking. "I'll leave you two alone again. We can talk later about organising some counselling sessions for you both."

"That won't be necessary," Lara said, pulling her hand out of House's grip and re-arranging herself in bed.

"No," House added, taking his hand back and standing up. "That won't be happening."

"I know it's hard right now, but you might—"

"Can I have a sleeping pill?" Lara asked. "A really strong one?" She looked at both of them, figuring that if the therapist wouldn't give her one, House just might.

"Sure," Dr Collins said. "I'll organise it."

House nodded, as if pleased by the medication order, and then, without a word, spun on his heel and walked out of the room.

Lara sat impassively and watched him go.

"Lara, are you sure you're doing all right?" Dr Collins, asked, clearly concerned. "Would you like to talk some more?"

Lara yawned. "Can we talk tomorrow? I'm really tired."

"Okay. I'll organise those meds for you. Is there anything else you need?"

"Can you call my friend Larissa? She was going to be my birth coach but she's on vacation. I called her yesterday, but she doesn't know what happened today."

The therapist took down Larissa's number and promised to call.

Lara was grateful that the nurse was quick delivering the little pill, and she was wrapping herself up in the white hospital blankets just as the fog began to envelop her brain. Sleep and darkness and peace. For a little while, at least.

* * *

--

House went home and did what he figured most people who'd had the kind of day he'd had would do. He drank half a bottle of bourbon and passed out on the couch.


	7. Chapter 7

_The next day_

Lara was discharged around midday and she walked outside the hospital guessing she'd find a cab. She had nothing but some hospital papers, an uncomfortably large kotex in her panties, and something the hospital called a "memory book", to show that she'd gone in there expecting to come out with a whole other person. And her breasts, of course, which felt like the size of two Mount Everests. The midwife had bound them tightly with an elasticised bandage, and told her to go home and put cabbage leaves and cold compresses inside the tightest bra she could find.

Lara was surprised, but didn't have the energy to show it, when her friend Janet pulled up, parked the car in a no standing zone, and rushed out to grab her in a hug. Lara winced, uttering a small cry of pain, and pulled away. Janet immediately began apologising.

"Oh Lara, I'm so sorry. I remember how sore my breasts were when—" She trailed off and Lara realised it was because she'd been about to talk about her own experience of childbirth. That had resulted in her two healthy, living children. With a shock, Lara realised this was going to be how it was from now on. She was part of a secret, sad club, and anyone who wasn't a member would never understand. In fact, they'd dance around, awkward, never knowing what to say, trying to avoid it. Janet was her most outspoken friend, she had never before hesitated to say whatever was on her mind. But now, even she was censoring herself.

Janet gave her a grim smile. "Larissa called me. She and Paul have cut their trip short and will be back tomorrow. I'm taking you home now and you can stay with me until Larissa's back. I've got the spare bed all made up and there's soup ready for lunch." Janet grabbed Lara's few possessions and loaded them into the car, helping Lara into the front seat. In the car, she continued to talk brightly. "I'm sorry, I thought I'd get here before you were discharged. You probably didn't get my messages on your cell phone, I know you probably had to have it turned off, but I got held up because Charlie—" Janet gasped a little and cut herself off again. Lara knew that Charlie was Janet's two-year-old son.

"What did he get up to?" Lara asked, knowing from the position of her mouth that she was smiling, although she couldn't quite feel it.

Janet sighed in relief. "He was playing with his ride-on fire engine and the ladder got stuck, so he climbed up on a chair to try to fix it. Of course, the chair toppled over and he hit his head on the fire engine on the way down. He's fine, just a bruise, but of course there was a lot of screaming and I had to calm him down before I could leave him alone with the neighbour while I came to get you."

"Poor kid," Lara sympathised without feeling it.

"Lara," Janet began tentatively, shooting her looks as she drove along, "Charlie will be home and Natalie will be back from school in a few hours. Will you be okay coming home with me with the kids there? I can take you to your apartment if you want, but Larissa and I didn't think it would be a good idea for you to be on your own. Especially if you're on any medication . . ."

Lara couldn't summon the energy to be concerned about it. Sleeping in her own bed appealed, but she didn't feel like being alone. She'd been to Janet's place before, it was nice, the spare bedroom was pretty and Lara didn't mind the idea of someone making her tea and bringing it to her in bed.

"I'll be fine. Thanks Janet, I really appreciate it."

"Of course." Janet reached over and grabbed Lara's hand. "I'm really sorry, Lara."

"Thanks," Lara said blankly.

The day and night passed quickly. Lara had filled the prescription for sleeping pills she'd been given by Dr Collins at the hospital pharmacy, so as soon as she got to Janet's she went to bed, took a pill and slept for most of the day. She woke in the early evening overhearing Janet's husband shushing one of the children outside her bedroom door and got up to go to the toilet and get a glass of water. Janet appeared shortly afterwards with a tray of soup and some toast and Lara made a half-hearted attempt to pick at it. Then she took another pill and fell asleep again.

The next morning Janet took Lara home to her apartment. Larissa and Paul were due in at midday and had promised to be there in just a couple of hours.

Lara steeled herself as she walked in the door, uncertain what her reaction would be to being home, back in a familiar environment and yet feeling so strange. Janet brought her things in, bustled around organising things for a short while and then left. Lara didn't miss the look of relief on her face as she went and didn't blame her. She'd leave too, if she could.

There was a half-empty, cold cup of herb tea still sitting on the table. Lara had been drinking it to try to calm her stomach before she'd decided things were serious enough to go in to the hospital. Without thinking, she picked up the cup and headed for the kitchen, rinsing it out and leaving it on the draining board.

She stood in the doorway of what was to have been the baby's room, feeling strangely unaffected. She'd kind of expected that this was the point at which everything would break, that for whatever force field it was that was currently holding her together, the baby's – _Grace's_ – empty crib would be its kryptonite. Seemed like she was wrong.

It didn't really look like a baby's room yet anyway. Lara had thought she still had seven weeks to get things organised. There was a white crib, she'd picked it up in a sale, and there were a few boxes of supplies scattered around. There was a change table and the few gifts she'd already received were sitting on top of it. Several swatches of wallpaper were lying on the floor, waiting for Lara to make a final choice.

_Like she needed reminding of her ability to put off making decisions. _

An image of House holding Grace flashed through her mind and that was almost, nearly it – she felt the clutch of something deep down inside, the shatter of a safety chain, something coming loose. But then she swallowed, biting it back, and it reluctantly retreated, returning to its dark cave.

She turned and headed for bed. She'd taken one of the pills in the car on the way over simply as a reflex action, and now the drowsiness was beginning to take hold.

It felt like just a few minutes later when Lara woke to the feel of someone climbing into bed with her and then Larissa's arms were around her, pressing them together. Larissa's cheeks were wet as she pushed her face against Lara's. Lara instinctively returned the hug, wrapping her arms around her friend, holding her tightly, ignoring the pain from her breasts at the contact.

"Oh Lara," Larissa sobbed. "We lost our baby. We lost our little girl."

And then something _did_ break and Lara felt the tears on her face, not knowing if they were hers or Larissa's, but feeling the ache in her throat as she sobbed, loud and ragged, not knowing anything beyond crying and feeling as if she'd never stop.

Larissa's hand brushed her hair back, and after a long while Lara knew Larissa's own tears had abated, but still she lay there, holding Lara, brushing back her hair, letting her cry deep, howling sobs that barely sounded human.

"Shh, shh."

When her throat, head and eyes were aching, Lara knew she had to try to reign in her crying. If she didn't she knew she'd never, ever be able to stop. In the strange, abstract part of her mind that was sitting back and watching her lie in bed and cover her best friend with tears and snot and saliva, she wondered if you could suffer from constant crying in the way she'd heard people could suffer from constant hiccups. She'd have to ask Paul. Or House – she thought he'd be more likely to know about something strange and unusual. She'd read everything she could find about him on the internet once she'd found out she was pregnant and it sounded like he'd be the expert in something like that – there had been a lot of journal articles and internet pages devoted to him. She wondered if he was proud of that.

Then she decided it was a very strange thing to be lying in bed crying over a dead baby while thinking about its father's resume. Which once again proved that she was not normal and that it was just as well she wasn't going to be a mother after all.

Lara began to try to control her breathing, trying to take deeper breaths, swallowing hard, becoming aware of the mess covering her face. Larissa began to wipe her cheeks with a bunch of tissues and Lara took them from her, turning into the pillow to hide for a moment. She wiped her face and then blew her nose, throwing the damp, disgusting tissues over the side of the bed. Larissa instantly pushed fresh ones into her hand and Lara pressed them to her face.

After a while Lara felt composed enough to open her eyes. They were hot and scratchy and she had to blink a few times to bring the room into focus.

Larissa gave her a watery smile and Lara tried to return it but wasn't sure if she succeeded. She was aware at once that while the chains around the dark thing inside had loosened, this wasn't it. Not even close. The prickly, scary, shadowy thing was still there, lurking, waiting for Lara to let her guard down again. Waiting for a time that she could let it happen. Or maybe she was kidding herself, thinking it was under her control.

"Here, drink this." Paul's gentle voice and his hand pressing a glass of water into her hands brought Lara back from her inner contemplation. She swallowed the water, realising that she was desperately thirsty and the cool liquid felt kind on her raw throat.

"You too." He handed a second glass to Larissa.

He refilled Lara's glass from a jug and she quickly drained it again, handing it back to him before resting back on the pillows. She noticed that his eyes were bright and bloodshot; he'd clearly been crying too.

Paul sat down on the end of the bed and Larissa continued to lie next her, clasping one of Lara's hands in both of hers. They sat in silence for a while and Lara felt a few last tears still wending their way down her cheeks. They were matched by quiet tears from both Larissa and Paul. The three of them sat on her bed, all crying silently. Lara couldn't help thinking it should be a scene in some French art-house movie.

"You got a tan," Lara said, breaking the silence, her voice crackling.

Larissa and Paul both laughed weakly through their tears.

Larissa sniffed loudly. "Wait til you see this." She gingerly lowered the cotton t-shirt she was wearing to display bright red sunburn across her chest. Paul laughed again.

"I told you, don't laugh," Larissa said to him warningly.

"Is that everywhere?"

"Yep," Larissa said almost proudly. "Topless sunbathing. Never again. My boobs are killing me."

"Mine too," Lara said. "Check this out." She pulled down her top to reveal a cabbage leaf peeping out from underneath her bra. After hearing the midwife's advice to Lara, Janet had helpfully bought a cabbage for her and separated the leaves, ready for use. They were now in a ziplock bag in Lara's refrigerator.

Larissa began to giggle. "Is that cabbage?"

"Yes," Lara found herself starting to giggle too.

"You're the cabbage patch kid," she joked, before clapping a hand over her mouth, clearly trying to hold in her laughter.

Lara knew it must be wrong to be joking this way, but she couldn't help it.

"That's it," she sat up, pretending to be offended. "I'm leafing!"

That provoked gales of laughter and both women were doubled over, crying again, but this time in hysterical peals of laughter. Lara's laughter, she knew, was simply the flip side of her grief, another way of letting it out. It wasn't even all that funny.

"Come on you two," Paul said with the exasperated tone of a man confronted by a baffling female display of emotion. He stood up. "I'm going to organise dinner. We're having Mexican because I really want a burrito."

Both women watched Paul disappear and slowly their laughter subsided. They heard him rustling around, finding Lara's stack of take-out menus.

"I love my husband, but I hate Mexican food," Larissa muttered, her breath still uneven.

"Me too." Lara nodded slowly. It didn't really matter; it wasn't like she was going to eat anyway.

"Should I tell Paul?"

"Nah."

Larissa turned to give her friend another, gentler, hug. "We'll get through this sweetie. Together."

* * *

--

Over the next few days, Wilson watched House carefully. The whole incident had managed to be contained to just a few people – not a small feat in a gossip-hungry hospital, especially when the main star of the story was one of the hospital's most disliked doctors.

Wilson knew, of course. Dr Collins, the psychiatrist, knew, and the only person she told was Lara's treating doctor, Dr Boyd, thinking that it was probably important that she was aware of the connection. She had no way of knowing that Boyd had just been about to go on a date with House. Of course, Boyd would have soon found out anyway, because House was the one who ended up giving permission for the autopsy.

Wilson spoke to Boyd and she was clearly shocked, telling Wilson in a horrified tone that she was mortified because when House had been in the NICU and Grace had died, she had immediately pressed him for details on their date. Wilson patted her arm, told her there was no way she could have known, and had wondered if House really _would_ mind if he asked Chelsea Boyd out. But he didn't. He was glad that she decided to keep the news to herself.

He told Cuddy, because he thought she should know. To his surprise, she burst into tears, but Wilson wasn't exactly sure what or who she was crying for. He just asked her to take it easy with House for a little while, that he felt it was important that she understand what he was going through. She nodded, sniffed, and said she'd look out for him without saying anything.

House's reaction was not quite what Wilson expected. But then, he didn't know what he _had_ expected. House seemed normal. His team, even Cameron, didn't seem to notice any change. But to Wilson's eyes he was subdued, quieter, less excitable. On Friday night, a few days later, he convinced House to go out for a drink, and they sat in a bar, House steadily working his way through a succession of bourbons. Conversation was sparse, and Wilson was acutely aware of the elephant in the room.

"Got the autopsy results," House said abruptly, after a long period of silence.

"Yeah?" Wilson knew he didn't need to ask _which _autopsy results. He felt a sudden dip in his stomach, realising that they were finally going to talk about it, and although he'd felt all along that was important, now that he was faced with it, he didn't really want to have to go through with it.

"It was inconclusive. They decided it was a combination of things. She had a patent ductus arteriosus and her heart wasn't getting enough oxygen to seal it. It shouldn't have been large enough to cause pulmonary hypertension, but it did. That seemed to cause arrhythmia and some bleeding in her lungs, but again, it shouldn't have been enough for her heart to arrest."

His tone was matter-of-fact; they could have been discussing any patient. Wilson thought he sounded puzzled, not angry, that no real cause had been determined.

Wilson shrugged, trying to find the right kind of sympathetic tone. "It's nothing we haven't both seen before, House. Sometimes preemies don't have the strength – there's some event or bacteria that would have no impact for an adult, but it's catastrophic for them. Even at thirty-three weeks."

"If the x-ray had shown the PDA, she'd have had the echo straight away, and then maybe she could have been put on vasodilators, or blood thinners, or been intubated to get more oxygen into her. But all of those have their own risks."

Again, Wilson noted that he didn't seem angry about it, simply curious. "Hmm." He made some kind of vague agreeing tone because he had no idea what more to say.

House downed his whisky and with a wave of his hand ordered another. The two men sat in silence for a while.

"I'm sad, Wilson," House said quietly after a moment. "I didn't expect to . . ." He trailed off.

Wilson nodded, shocked to hear such an admission from House of all people. He didn't really know how to react to it. "Of course you're sad House. That's . . . perfectly understandable," he said, trying to be mollifying. He realised he sounded like he was talking to a patient. To _anyone_. Not his best friend who needed more than it appeared he was capable of.

"It doesn't mean I wanted . . . _that_," House protested, clearly wanting Wilson to know that while he might be grieving for his daughter, it didn't mean he necessarily wanted to be a father in the first place.

"No it doesn't," Wilson reassured him.

The waitress appeared with new drinks for them both. Wilson paid while House stared out the window, only this was one time when Wilson didn't think he was just doing that to get out of paying the bill.

As soon as the waitress was out of earshot, Wilson leaned in. "Have you seen Lara?"

House shook his head.

"Are you going to?"

House shrugged. "Probably not."

"Are you angry with her?"

House frowned. "Angry?"

"For not telling you. For not getting you involved from the start."

He paused for a moment, considering his answer. "At first, maybe. But not anymore. I get it – I'd do the same. I wouldn't want me as my kid's father."

"Oh, House." There was so much wrong with that statement Wilson didn't know where to begin.

Instead, both men drained their drinks and the subject was closed.

"Going to the hockey game tomorrow?" Wilson asked.


	8. Chapter 8

Three weeks after leaving hospital Lara could kid herself that life had almost returned to normal. She and Larissa had packed up all the baby things and sold them off, not without a few more tears from both of them. Larissa and Paul had collected the furniture Lara had put into storage and returned the room to the home office/spare bedroom that it used to be.

Lara had gone back to her yoga class. One excited person had noted her shrunken belly and asked after the baby, and when Lara had told her that she'd died, everyone left her alone, clearly uncertain what to say. Her body was slowly returning to what passed for normal, her stomach was noticeably smaller though it was still swollen, and finally her breasts had stopped aching, although they still showed a few purplish stretch mark stripes. Lara knew she'd have to wait a while for those to fade and told herself to be thankful she hadn't ended up with any on her belly.

She thought about going back to work, that perhaps it would be a good idea to focus on something else. She called her boss and explained the situation; later that day an enormous bouquet of flowers had arrived. Funny, she realised they were the only flowers she'd received. She'd barely had a chance to tell anyone about Grace's birth, before she was telling them about Grace's death. Her boss was sympathetic and agreed to find a way to get Lara back to work as soon as she was ready, but left that decision to her. Lara still hadn't quite worked out what she felt like doing and as she was still sleeping for at least twelve to fifteen hours a day, a normal office routine didn't appeal. In the end she told her boss she'd stay on leave for a while.

Larissa or Paul came around every day, even if just for a few minutes. But it wasn't until Janet came to visit one day that Lara realised she hadn't eaten for two days.

_That was probably not very normal. _

Janet walked in carrying bags filled with cupcakes, a couple of casserole dishes and a few groceries that Lara was very grateful to see. She was just about out of toilet paper and the milk had run out days ago. She'd starting drinking her coffee black – a trip to the grocery store seemed like too much effort.

"Are you hungry?" Janet bustled around the kitchen, organising things like the efficient mother-of-two that she was.

The question reminded Lara that she hadn't eaten and yet, curiously, wasn't hungry.

"I brought some fresh tomatoes. I can make you a sandwich."

"No, thanks."

Janet sighed. She finished putting everything away and then turned to Lara taking her hands. "Are you eating? Are you looking after yourself? You look like crap." she said in that blunt way she had.

"Of course," Lara protested weakly.

"Lara, I know what you're supposed to look like after you give birth. And unless you're Angelina Jolie with your own personal trainer, you're not eating."

"I'm not hungry."

"I know." She squeezed Lara's hands. "But I'm going to make you a sandwich anyway and you'll eat it, just to please me. Okay?"

Lara nodded, slightly ashamed to submit to the tone Janet clearly used on her toddler. The plain tomato sandwich was easier to eat than she'd thought and she had to admit that she did feel better afterwards. That night she decided to have another, but cut her hand trying to slice the tomatoes. It wasn't that deep, but it hurt and bled profusely. She slapped a Band-Aid over it, annoyed with herself, and ate the half-made sandwich anyway, then fell asleep on the couch watching re-runs of MASH.

* * *

--

House was in his office twirling his cane like a lazy cheerleader and staring off into the distance when someone knocked at his door. He was so absorbed by his current patient's case he almost didn't hear it. When he saw Paul Kimble walking in, one of Wilson's oncologists, he could only think that it had something to do with the case.

"Would paraneoplastic syndrome cause blood clots in the brain?" he asked.

"Uh," Kimble looked taken aback, like a kid who'd had a pop quiz sprung on him. "I don't know, why?"

House narrowed his eyes. "If you're not going to be helpful, why are you here?"

Kimble sighed and took a seat opposite House's desk. "I need to talk to you about Lara."

House rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically, but it was a cover for the deep and instant unease he felt. He'd just been beginning to feel that he was putting all that behind him. At least, it wasn't in his thoughts quite as often anymore, and he was beginning to feel he was back to what he considered his normal level of unhappiness.

"What about her?" he asked, sure he didn't want to know the answer.

"She's not doing well. Not eating, not looking after herself. She's very depressed."

"Well of course she is. Her baby died," House said with a "duh" tone.

"We were wondering if you could go and see her," Kimble said tentatively. "She might listen to you."

"Why would she listen to me? I hardly know her."

"I know." Kimble sighed. "It's just we don't know what to do. Janet and Larissa and I have been visiting every day between the three of us. I've been keeping an eye on her medication, making sure she's not taking too much. We've done everything we can think of."

"It's only been a few weeks. She needs time."

"I _know_ that," Kimble said, starting to get irritated. He fell back in the chair and sighed loudly again. "I met Lara two years ago when I met Larissa. They're best friends. Larissa is going out of her mind with worry."

House sneered. "Oh, now I get it. The little woman's making life difficult for you at home, so now you need to solve her friend's problem to get her focus back to you, huh? What, she too upset to give you any of the good stuff?"

Kimble shook his head and looked disgusted. "Fine." He rose from the chair. "I can tell Larissa I tried."

House watched as Kimble walked towards the door. "Wait," he said after a pause long enough for the other man to almost make it all the way out into the corridor. House wasn't quite sure what to say. How could he explain that _he_ didn't help other people out of their misery, other people did that for _him_? He was crap at sympathy, even crapper at empathy, and no use at all the practical things that depressed, grieving people required. He couldn't cook, hated housework, was awkward and uncomfortable with the kind of physical affection that might be involved.

Above all, he didn't need to be reminded of Grace, not now that he was _over_ the whole thing. But it did prompt him that he still hadn't heard back from the neonatal cardiac specialist in London that he'd emailed Grace's file to for a second opinion on cause of death. "Inconclusive" just didn't cut it for House. He made a mental note to check the time in the UK and call him to follow up.

"I've known Lara a long time," Paul said, hand on the door. "I saw her when her fiancé left, when her dad died. This is different."

House sighed. "Give me her address. I'm not promising anything."

* * *

--

Lara wasn't planning to open the door, but whoever was on the other side was clearly very keen to come in. They knocked, continuously, until Lara sighed and peeled herself up from the sofa.

"I'm coming!"

She opened the door, expecting to see Larissa, Janet or Paul, although the knock should have told her it wasn't one of her usual visitors.

She'd forgotten how tall he was – his frame almost filled the doorway. They stood, looking at each other frankly in silence.

"You stink," he said after a while.

"Nice to see you too," Lara muttered.

"No, really, you smell. Bad." He barged in through the door and walked straight into her living room.

"I've been working in the garden," Lara protested.

"What, three days ago?"

Lara made some muttered excuse, but he was right. She had been possessed by the need to re-pot all her plants the day before yesterday – _or was it the day before that?_ She'd only got halfway through before some of her still-tender muscles complained about the exertion, so she'd given up and decided to finish them later. Showering had seemed a little pointless when she was only going to get dirty again when she got back to it. Except she hadn't quite managed that yet. None of her friends had said anything, not even Janet.

"Why are you here?"

"Paul asked me."

"He had no right to do that."

"Oh, don't get your knickers in a knot." He shrugged off his leather jacket and flopped down onto the sofa. "Got any beer?"

"No."

"Whisky?"

"No."

"Damn. Would have brought my own if I'd known."

Lara snorted. "Larissa took the hard liquor. She doesn't think I know, but I remember I had a full bottle of Grey Goose and it's suddenly disappeared. There's wine though. Maybe she thought I couldn't do as much damage with that."

Lara wandered around to the front of the sofa where he'd made himself comfortable and he looked up at her. "She's worried about you," he said, matter-of-factly.

"Everyone's worried about me."

"Not me," he said, shaking his head. "You look fine to me. Don't smell so hot, but you look fine."

Lara knew he was lying. She looked like shit. Her replanting effort had been partly inspired by the fact that she'd looked at herself in the mirror and hated the pale, blotchy skin on her face. Spending some time outside had been an effort to address that. But somehow, she realised, the paleness of her skin was nothing to do with lack of sunshine. It was coming from the inside.

"Maybe I could do with a shower," she admitted reluctantly.

"Good." He got up from the couch and wandered into the tiny kitchen alcove off to one side. He opened the refrigerator. "How long's this lasagne been in here?"

"I don't know. Not that long, Janet's pretty good at keeping an eye on that."

"It just goes in the oven, doesn't it?" He peered at her over the door.

"Um, yeah." Lara felt as if she'd stepped into a fast-flowing stream and had been dragged along with the current.

"Good, that's about the extent of my cooking abilities. It should be ready by the time you're out of the shower. Don't forget to wash your hair because I can see at least one bug in it."

Before she realised quite what was happening, Lara found herself in the shower, washing her hair. She watched as a small beetle swirled away down the drain with the suds and the tears welled. Because somehow, the capable, pragmatic, professional Lara Thompson that she'd once known had turned into a hermit lady who didn't wash and went days without realising there was a bug in her hair.

That was not good.

It had taken a virtual stranger to point it out.

Just the idea of being so pathetic made her feel like sitting down in the tub and never getting out. Instead, finding some inner resolve she didn't know she had, she grabbed the shower gel and a new razor, shaved her legs and underarms and double-conditioned her hair. After the shower, she brushed her teeth, blow dried her hair and found a stretchy gypsy-style skirt and a black t-shirt that were both a little too clingy, but at least they weren't maternity wear. Since the hospital, Lara had mostly been wearing pyjamas, because she couldn't bear to put on the clothes she'd worn when she was pregnant. Had packed them up and had Larissa take them away, in fact. But her belly was still too swollen for most of her old clothes.

When she finally walked out into the living room, it was filled with the smell of meat and tomato and cheese. Plates and cutlery had been dumped in a pile in the middle of her small dining table and a bottle of red wine had been opened and a bit of it – quite a bit of it – had already been consumed.

"Where do you keep your pot holder thing?" a grumpy voice asked.

"In the second drawer," she said, pouring herself a glass of wine. He'd put out drinking glasses, not wine glasses, but Lara didn't really care. The wine tasted lovely but didn't feel very good once it hit her stomach. She realised she really had to eat something.

A moment later, House emerged from the kitchen holding the lasagne. He dumped it on the table without fanfare, cutting each of them huge slabs and messily transferring it to plates.

"Here," he said, shoving one towards her. Without waiting for Lara, he sat down and began eating.

She couldn't help feeling the corners of her mouth lift in what felt almost like a genuine smile. The first she could remember in a long time. She wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't as if Larissa hadn't tried to serve her a meal or ten before now. Perhaps it was because Larissa's service came with sad pleading to _please eat_. This time she felt as if it was simply a foregone conclusion that she would do exactly what he had asked without him even asking, let alone begging. She sat down and began to pick at the lasagne, managing quite a few forkfuls before she had to rest.

"How have you been?" she asked eventually, feeling strange sitting at the table with someone without talking.

"Good." He'd eaten all the lasagne on his plate and was in the midst of serving himself a second helping.

"Busy at work?"

"The usual."

"How's Wilson?"

"Good."

"It's been pretty cold for Spring, don't you think?"

"I guess."

Lara almost growled under her breath. His curt answers were irritating her. When they'd first met, their easy conversation and his witty banter had been one of the most attractive things about him. "Seen any good movies recently?" she asked sarcastically.

House gave a small laugh. He was clearly deliberately being difficult and was amused that she'd called him on it. "No, you?" he said, finally taking part in the conversation.

"I watched a MASH marathon last week."

"Hawkeye Pierce inspired me to want to become a doctor."

"Really?"

"No." His eyes sparkled mischievously. "But I liked the idea of all the martinis."

"You're a pain."

"That's what they tell me. Eat." He pointed a fork at her plate.

Lara picked up her fork and ate a few more mouthfuls of food. She figured her stomach had shrunk, because she felt genuinely full having eaten about a quarter of what he was shovelling away.

He finished his food and sat back watching her eat until she pushed the still half-full plate away.

"I'm full."

"Good. That was great lasagne."

"Janet's been wonderful – I get all the leftovers from her family."

"Any chance she can stop by my place?"

"I'll ask."

"Does she do dessert?" He took in a deep breath and then burped.

"Nice!" Lara objected.

"Excuse me," he muttered.

"There might be ice cream in the freezer. And I think she said something about pie, I don't know what kind."

House suddenly leaned forward, narrowing his eyes, staring at her intently.

"How hot was your shower?" he asked.

"What? I don't know, the usual."

"That lasagne was just warm. So why are you sweating?"

"I'm—" Lara wiped a hand over her face and realised that she was perspiring. She hadn't noticed. Whether it was her grief or the anti-depressant medication that was supposed to be treating that, the sensations of her body, pain, pleasure, taste, discomfort, whatever, it was all dulled.

He reached over and put the back of his hand against her forehead.

"Lara! You have a fever!" He sounded annoyed with her.

"No, I don't, I'm just—"

"Do you have any abdominal pain?"

"No."

"Any problems peeing?"

"I'm fine." Lara reached up to pull his hand away.

"You could have a postnatal infection."

"All the bits of me that could have an infection are fine. I read the books. I've been careful."

"Yeah, like not washing for three days." His sarcasm was clear.

"Leave me alone," Lara said abruptly. They'd been having a pleasant dinner, until now. She annoyed with him for spoiling it. She reached over to pick up his plate.

"What did you do to your hand?" He grabbed her hand and turned it over.

Belatedly Lara remembered the cut from the tomato. She'd been meaning to do something about it, but it kept slipping her mind. Like everything else.

"I cut it." Now that she was thinking about it, she realised it was throbbing and hot.

"The bandage is disgusting."

Lara realised it was the same Band-Aid she'd put on when she'd first cut herself. And she'd been doing a lot of gardening and not-washing since then.

"Come into the kitchen."

Lara got up and followed him meekly. He held her hand under the low-hanging kitchen light and pulled the Band-Aid off quickly. Lara winced.

"This is gross, and that's saying something. You have no idea the gross things I've seen."

Lara bit her lip.

"Have you got Paul Kimble's number?"

She nodded as he pulled out his cell phone. She grabbed her own phone, looked up the number, and read it out to him as he dialled.

"Kimble, it's House. Write Lara a script for amoxicillin and bring some over." Lara could hear Paul's slightly panicked voice babble in the background. "No it's not, it's a cut on her hand. Yeah. Good." He hung up.

"Have you got a first aid kit?"

"Yeah, but it's not that bad—"

"Shut up and get it."

Lara sighed and realised it would be easier to give in. She hurried to the bathroom and pulled the small kit from the back of the cupboard. Returning to the kitchen she handed it to him.

House held her hand under the light again and with cotton and antiseptic cleaned out the cut and the skin around it. He prodded it gently and Lara sucked in a breath.

"Idiot," he muttered vehemently under his breath as he found a clean bandage and dressed her hand.

For some reason, hearing him call her that made hot, painful tears well in her eyes.

_Perhaps because he's right._

The thought came fast and unbidden, stabbing her like a physical jolt. She blinked and felt the tears slide down her face; her breath caught in a badly concealed sob.

He looked up at her and Lara didn't miss the expressions that crossed his face. She could have sworn the first was fear, but that was quickly covered by exasperation.

"It doesn't hurt that much," he accused.

"No." Lara shook her head. "It doesn't."

"Then stop crying."

Lara wished it was that easy. "Sorry."

He returned his attentions to her hand, finishing off the bandage with a short length of tape to hold it in place. "Change it tomorrow," he said brusquely. "Get Kimble to do it for you. And take some Tylenol for the fever."

"Okay." As soon as her hand was free, Lara turned away, fighting to compose herself again. She knew it would take a little while, she'd become an expert in her tears and this was the kind of unexpected attack that would take ten minutes or so to recover from. She wished she was more creative, she'd heard that the Eskimos had lots of different words for snow, and if she'd been able to, she'd have started a lexicon for crying, the subtleties and distinct types she'd discovered herself capable of over the past month.

She grabbed some tissues from a nearby box and blew her nose, hoping that might speed things up. While her back was turned she heard a rustle and when she looked up again she was just in time to see his back in the doorway as the front door closed behind him.

At that, Lara was consumed by fresh sobs and threw herself down on the sofa, crying into the pillows.

* * *

--

Paul Kimble got home just as his wife finished a late-evening conference call with her office. They kissed and then he took off his jacket and sat down in the chair with a heavy sigh.

"I went to see Lara. Had to take her some antibiotics."

Larissa had been sorting through the day's mail, but at her husband's comment she dropped the envelopes and put a hand to her throat. "Oh my God! Is she okay? It's not an infection related to the birth is it?"

"No, that's what I was worried about too, but she cut her hand and it got infected."

"And we didn't notice!" Larissa was clearly upset.

"It's okay," Paul consoled. "How were we to know? House looked at it and dressed it for her."

"He visited?"

"Yeah, he did."

"Did Lara say how it went?"

"No, she didn't say anything about it. I knew he was there because he called me and told me to get her the meds. When I got there he was gone and I could tell she'd been crying, but get this," his voice rose with clear excitement. "Larissa, she was dressed _in clothes_. She'd washed her hair. I even think she might have eaten something."

Larissa started crying.

Paul stood up and put his arms around his wife. "Darling, what's the matter?"

"Nothing," Larissa sniffed. "I'm just so relieved."


	9. Chapter 9

It was almost a week before he turned up again. Lara opened the door and he stared at her for a moment. Lara thought he looked confused, as if he'd accidentally knocked on the wrong door; wasn't even sure why he was there. The moment passed and he walked in without invitation, carrying a canvas grocery bag. From it, he lifted a large bottle of Glenmorangie.

"This is for _me_," he said, putting the bottle down on to the table with a thud. "But if you're very good, I might just let you have some." He gave her a stern frown.

"Uh, thanks," Lara said, still standing at the door, marvelling at how he was able to walk straight into her home and completely take it over in just seconds.

"These are for _you._" He reached into the bag again and withdrew a box of extra-large, extra-soft tissues.

"Ri-i-i-ight," Lara said hesitantly. She closed the door and went back to her position on the sofa, wondering why he was giving her tissues. _Was he planning on making her cry? _She remembered, of course, what had happened last time he'd visited.

"If you start crying again, I'm going to hand you this box. And that's all. If you don't stop crying within what I consider to be a reasonable amount of time, I'm leaving. These are my terms."

He stood there, looking like a grumpy teacher forced to discipline a rowdy student. Her heart ached for him, for herself, for the both of them, but she figured it might be testing him just a little too much to cry right then.

Lara wondered how long it had taken him to come up with this idea. Clearly he was uncomfortable with her distress. This was his way of telling her he couldn't deal with it, and yet at the same time that he recognised it was more than likely going to happen again. Why he'd decided to come back again was a larger mystery that Lara didn't feel able to even begin thinking about.

"Okay," she said quietly.

After that he began to drop around regularly, every couple of days or so. Sometimes he'd stay for an hour, sometimes for the whole evening. There was no routine, no pre-warning, sometimes he ate dinner with her, sometimes he didn't. Mostly they talked about his day at work, or Lara told him what she'd managed to do that day; often they talked about what they watched on television.

Late one afternoon he turned up, a couple of weeks after his visits had begun, requested a coffee and lay down on the sofa. Before Lara had returned from the kitchen with a cup he was asleep. He slept for two hours before waking with a start and looking around, disoriented and confused. Lara, who'd curled up in the armchair to read and to just sit and listen to his steady breathing, looked up and gave him a gentle smile. Perhaps it was because he was still half-asleep, but when he smiled back she saw his naked face for the first time: vulnerable, sweet, sad. He covered it quickly, checked his watch, got up hurriedly and left. He told her later that he'd had a big case on and hadn't slept for almost two days.

Larissa still came around to visit every day and Janet appeared every few days to restock the fridge, write a shopping list, and occasionally do some of the more physical housework that she told Lara she shouldn't be doing yet. But it was House's visits by which Lara measured her progress. Perhaps because he wasn't there every day. Or perhaps because he was a new set of eyes to see herself through. All Lara knew was that things were changing. She was changing. Time, it appeared, did help, just as everyone had said. She was nowhere near her old self and, in fact, she wondered if she ever would be. Now she could sometimes go an hour or so before she'd remember again what had happened. At first that had made her cry, thinking that she was forgetting, forgetting Grace, but after a while she realised it was probably the natural way of things; it was how things were going to be from now on.

* * *

--

One night, a couple of months after Grace's death, Lara answered the door to House and it was late, almost ten. She'd been about to turn off the TV and go to bed, but heard the noise of his motorcycle pulling up outside. She showed him in and he shrugged off his leather jacket, tossing it and his helmet carelessly into a corner. He smelt sweaty, nothing offensive, perhaps it was just a result of the fact that it had been a warm day, or simply that he'd been working hard, and his eyes flashed with an emotion or an energy that Lara couldn't identify.

"Whisky," he said, settling himself down in the arm chair that he'd somehow claimed as his own.

Lara was used to his one word commands now and had given up adding "please" like an exasperated mother. "Whisky coming up," she said. She poured them both a shot and sat down next to him. Some instinct compelled her to bring the bottle with her, and sure enough, he downed the drink she'd handed him and reached out to pour himself another.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Crap day at work," he muttered. "Anything good on TV?"

"Re-runs of Stargate?" Lara suggested. It had been what she had been watching.

"I said anything _good_," he muttered, but made no attempt to change the channel, instead pouring himself another whisky. It wasn't until much later that Lara would eventually find out what had happened to him that day. The clinic patient whose prenatal care and delivery he'd done in order to scam time in the OB lounge had brought the child in to show him. She seemed to have some deluded belief that House would want to see her vile offspring. She made him hold the baby girl so she could take a photo and, just as he'd been posing – figuring it would be easier to do it and get her out of there – his team had come back to the office. He'd had to endure some guffaws from Foreman and Chase about how awkward and wrong he looked holding a baby, while Cameron just stood there looking all gooey-eyed. The whole incident had left him disturbed, but angry at himself for feeling that way.

That night the two of them sat together on the sofa for another couple of hours, watching television in virtual silence, only speaking to make occasional comments about the plot. Eventually, yawning, Lara got up.

"I have to go to bed. You've had too much to drink to drive home." She went into her bedroom and returned with a pillow and a quilt. "Here. Turn off the TV when you're done."

Despite her tiredness, Lara still hadn't fallen asleep almost an hour later when she heard him in the bathroom, followed by the rustle of the quilt being laid out. Finally the television was turned off, the apartment was silent, and Lara slept.

She woke with a start sometime later when she felt her bed dip and the unmistakable sensation of someone crawling into bed with her.

"What?" She wasn't scared, just startled.

"Your couch is ridiculously uncomfortable. I can't sleep on it."

"Oh." Lara was suddenly wide awake. Somehow, she now realised, in all the times that House had been visiting her over the past few weeks, she'd never thought about this, never considered that they might find themselves in bed together again. Even accidentally. The haze that had encompassed her since Grace hadn't allowed her to think of much more than getting out of bed each day, eating something and living through the day until it was time to go back to bed again. She rolled onto her back, staring up at the dark ceiling. He was doing the same, and she could tell from the tense way he held himself that he was wide awake too.

"Tell me about your pregnancy," he asked, suddenly.

"What?" Lara couldn't have been more surprised if he'd announced he was an alien. "Why?" she asked, simply to stall, she figured he had every right to ask, she just wasn't sure how to answer him.

"Because, if you'll recall, I wasn't there." The sarcasm in his voice was sharp enough to make Lara flinch.

"I know," she said softly.

They were both quiet again for a moment.

"So?" he asked, and Lara knew he wasn't going to give up. She sighed and rolled on to her side to face him.

"Well, I was in Singapore when I found out. I realised that my period was late, but I'd been in a gazillion time zones in three weeks by then and I've never been a 'like clockwork' kind of girl anyway. But then the author I was working with said something. She'd written this book on parenthood – had six kids herself. We were in a television studio, she was doing an interview for a breakfast TV show, and I'd been to the bathroom about five times that day already – I'd figured I just needed to cut back on the coffee. When I came back she jokingly said that if she didn't know better she'd think I was pregnant – she said that it was always the multiple trips to the bathroom that had tipped her off in her own pregnancies."

Lara laughed softly. "I wish I could have seen the look on my face. I must have looked like I was going to faint, because all of a sudden there were people around me, fanning me, offering me water, making me sit down. Later, she skipped one of her interviews to go with me to a drug store to buy a test. We sat in her hotel room the next morning before our flight to Sydney and watched the little lines appear on the stick."

He was still staring up at the ceiling and in the darkness Lara couldn't read the subtleties of the impassive expression on his face. She wasn't sure she wanted to, anyway.

"When I got back, Larissa went with me to the doctor. I did the blood test, got confirmation and then came back here and sat and stared at the wall for a few hours. I was . . . in shock."

"I bet," House muttered.

"At first I was going to have a termination, I never really wanted kids. But then . . . I don't know. I'm thirty-nine years old, what are the chances of it happening like that, after one night? I felt superstitious, like it was meant to be. I thought it was probably my only chance, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it on my own and I had no idea if you . . ." She paused and took a deep breath. _How could she explain it to him when she barely understood it herself?_ "I was engaged—"

House twisted his head to look at her, frowning.

"Not when I met you," she hurriedly added. "It broke up before that. But I thought he was it. And he wasn't. I didn't trust my own judgement because I'd just made such a huge mistake. I couldn't decide what to do about calling you, or about the . . . baby or . . . _anything_ really." Lara tried hard to cover the break in her voice; she was determined not to cry. "Eventually I put off making the decision long enough that there was no longer any decision to make."

"Were you planning to tell me? Ever?" She didn't miss the way the muscle in his jaw twitched when he spoke.

"Yes. No. I don't know." Lara was angry with herself when she felt the tears well. She flipped onto her back and blinked hard for a moment. "Yes. I would have. I just don't know when. It was another decision I . . . put off."

"So what, I might have received an invitation to her fucking college graduation? Or a bill for back-paid child support when things got tough?" His voice was low, his anger plain. She could feel the tension radiating from his body, and absently wondered if he might hit her. She thought if he did, that it would probably be fair.

"It wasn't about money," Lara protested weakly.

"Really? Well then how about the fact that I had _a daughter_ and if I hadn't been roped into helping out in the ER that day, I might never have known she existed?"

At hearing him say the word "daughter", the dark thing in chains in the cave in the back of Lara's mind stirred and stretched. It hadn't been let out for a good sob in a while now, and she knew that meant it had been back there, resting and gathering strength. She was even more afraid of it now than she had been when she'd first discovered it existed.

Lara tuned everything out and focussed instead on her breathing, in and out, slowly, methodically. The ache at the back of her throat, the one that threatened those agonising sobs that made her fear her crying would never cease, slowly abated. So far his tissue-box conditions of visitation had ruled. Lara had only cried in his presence a couple of times and each time it had been shallow and brief. She knew if she gave in this time it wouldn't be. It would be the kind of tears that lasted until dawn, that wrenched her body and left her unable to do anything but lie in bed for the day. It would be a clear contravention of the terms he had set, and he would leave. She didn't want that.

Once she felt she had herself under control she took a deep breath and said the words she'd been trying to say to him for weeks. Months.

"I'm sorry."

"Hmph." He muttered something under his breath and shifted in the bed, but the tension seemed to drain from him, she could feel his anger fall away. They lay together in dark silence for a long time, both still awake, neither saying anything.

"And what about your sonograms?" he asked finally. "What did the ultrasounds show?"

Lara was surprised, she'd figured the subject was closed and had started to doze off. "Uh, the usual, I guess. I didn't find out the sex, I wanted that to be a surprise. Larissa came with me," she added, unsure what he wanted to know.

"No, about the heart," he said, exasperated.

"Oh that! Nothing, she was fine. They never said anything about . . ." She trailed off, wondering why he was asking about that.

"What were you doing when you went into labour?"

Lara took in a breath and let it out in a hiss. That was a day she tried hard not to remember. "I was here. I woke up not feeling well, so I called my office and said I'd work from home. I drank some tea to try to settle my stomach and I lay down to try to ease the contractions. Eventually I decided I should get checked out, so I called a cab and went to the hospital." She figured she didn't need to go any further than that. A sudden thought stopped her in her tracks. She sat up abruptly, staring down at his stony face. "Why? Do you think I did something wrong? Was it something I did that caused it?"

"No, it's not that, nothing like that would have made a difference." He sighed, not looking at her. "It doesn't make sense," he muttered under his breath.

Lara flopped back against the pillows. "What doesn't?"

He snorted. "Any of it."

"No, it doesn't."

They both fell silent again and after a while Lara drifted off to sleep. When she woke up in the morning, he was gone.

* * *

--

**A/N: **Don't forget to leave me love!


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Thanks for your lovely reviews. You make my day!

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* * *

--  
_

_A couple of weeks later_

"Larry Fischer said that if you continue to steal his cardiology journals from his office he's going to send you a bill," Wilson warned.

House shrugged it off. "He should lock his office."

"He said it _was_ locked."

In answer House just gave Wilson a smile that he knew would infuriate him. The two men exited the elevator and began walking down the corridor that led to their offices. He expected Wilson to peel off towards his own door, but he continued to follow House right inside his office, still lecturing about respecting other people's privacy. House stayed silent, letting Wilson drone on. There was something comforting about these little speeches of his, something that made him feel cared for.

They sat down either side of his desk and Wilson seemed to run out of puff because he fell into silence. House wiggled the mouse on his desk to bring his computer to life, figuring that without a current case, he'd spend the rest of the afternoon surfing the internet.

"What's that?" Wilson asked, peering at a grainy, black and white image pinned up on House's light box.

"Left over from the last patient," House said dismissively, scolding himself silently for his carelessness of leaving it on display.

"I can't even make out what it is . . ." Wilson said, leaning forward to peer more carefully at it.

"It's a small image I had enlarged, just trying to get a better look," House said, knowing that a partial truth would be more convincing than an outright lie. He wasn't about to tell Wilson that the night he'd slept at Lara's, while she'd been asleep, he'd searched for and found the small records box that she used to keep all her Grace-related papers and memories in. He'd found the memory book the hospital produced, with photographs of the baby, her tiny inked hand and foot prints, the little pink card with her name and weight that had adorned the crib she'd laid in. But after a quick look through he'd pushed that to one side, finding instead the polaroid ultrasound memento. It wasn't designed to be diagnostic, was simply a keepsake of the event. But House had pocketed it and had the chest-region of the image blown up almost beyond the point of recognition. It still didn't show anything, in fact, the low resolution made it practically useless, but House liked to stare at it, imagining that inspiration would somehow strike.

Come to think of it, he hadn't actually mentioned to Wilson the fact that he'd even seen Lara once, let alone been spending time with her regularly over the past couple of months. Or spent the night in her bed. He couldn't really explain it himself, so perhaps that was why.

Since the night they'd slept together, House had continued to visit every few days in the sort-of-routine they'd established. Only now he felt as if there was a tension there that hadn't existed before. He didn't know for sure if it was affecting Lara, but occasionally he'd caught her looking at him, caught a quick smile or a blush and he was pretty sure it wasn't just him. He didn't think it was _only_ because they'd laid in bed next to one another. They hadn't even touched each other then. It was more than that, and it was growing each time they were together.

Wilson fell back in the chair, clearly giving up his guessing game. "Want to go out tomorrow night?" he asked. "I was thinking of going to—"

"Can't," House interrupted. The last time he'd been at Lara's she'd told him there was an _Arrested Development_ marathon on TV on Friday night. It wasn't like it was a _date_ or anything, but House had been looking forward to sitting on her sofa with a bottle of wine and watching it together.

"What, your social calendar's full?" Wilson asked sarcastically.

"I've got something else on," House hedged, wondering if it was time to come clean to his friend. It might be nice to talk to him about some of the things he'd been thinking recently, only House wasn't sure if he was up to that kind of sharing, that kind of revelation.

"Really?"

House could hear the surprise – and a little hurt – in Wilson's voice. He sighed. "I've made arrangements to see Lara." He deliberately made it sound as if it might have been for the first time.

"Oh, oh! Of course! You should do that, that's really important," Wilson was all apologetic suddenly. "I'm glad you're . . . I mean it's good that you're . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, Wilson, don't get all excited." House waved a hand dismissively.

"How's she doing?"

"Better."

Wilson took a deep breath before asking, "How are _you_ doing?"

"I'm fine."

"I know you don't talk about it – don't _want_ to talk about it – but I've been impressed with how you're dealing with it. You've been very . . ." Wilson searched for the right word, "_mature_."

House rolled his eyes, hoping Wilson would lay off. "Mature? What, have I not filled my quota of fart jokes this month?"

"You lost a daughter, House, something like that takes a while to get over, no matter how long you knew her for."

For some reason House bristled at Wilson's suggestion that Grace was something he had to "get over".

"I'm fine Wilson," he said again through gritted teeth. Thankfully something told Wilson that it would be a good time to leave things alone and he changed the subject.

* * *

--

On Friday night when House turned up at Lara's house with a bottle of chardonnay – he hated it, but he knew it was her favourite – he was surprised, and annoyed, to find both Paul and Larissa Kimble there. He'd seen the two occasionally when visits had overlapped, but either he or they had generally left quickly as if the assumption was that Lara could only have one visitor at a time.

When Lara showed him into the living room, he was even more annoyed to find that Paul had snagged _his_ chair – an old-fashioned, wing-back style armchair that was particularly good for snoozing in. He was forced to sit on the sofa, Lara next to him, Larissa on the other side of Lara. After a while he had to admit that it wasn't too bad. He was sitting on the right side of the couch, his bad leg pushed up against a couple of pillows and the pressure was actually quite comfortable. Paul Kimble had seemed a little unsettled for a while – after all, House was his boss's best friend – but he'd relaxed soon enough. The girls were very happily making their way through a succession of bottles of wine, now with House's help. Paul was clearly the designated driver.

The show, one House had always enjoyed, was as funny as ever and the four of them seemed to laugh in the same places, chatting about the plot, about their respective days, nothing significant, but all easy and pleasant. Lara was drinking more than he'd seen her drink with the exception of the first night they'd met. Since he'd been coming over she'd always joined him for a glass of wine or a whisky, but she would usually stop after one or two. This time she'd been thrilled with the wine he'd brought, opened it straight away and poured herself some. She continued to drink steadily, although not excessively, through the night. In her tipsy state, she often brushed against him, and one time when she'd been laughing hard, she'd put a hand on his thigh to steady herself. House had been instantly aware of the connection, but she seemed oblivious.

A few hours later House realised he must have dozed off. He'd woken because his leg was hurting – his _left_ leg. He found himself lounged out on the sofa, head thrown back, one arm along the back, his throat sore from snoring. The television was off, the room dark, and the Kimbles were gone. Lara was sprawled next to him, her head sagging low on his chest. He thought he could feel a small patch of wetness on his shirt from her drool and he smiled. One of her arms was pressed on his leg for balance, and _that_ was what was hurting. He wanted to move, _needed_ to move, but having Lara curled up to him like this was so . . . _nice_.

He dropped his arm from the sofa cushions and put it around her shoulders, his hand resting temptingly close to her breast. In response she snuggled closer to him.

He sat there for a while longer before his leg threatened to go completely numb, and he knew that wasn't a good idea because then he had no idea how he'd walk. And his bladder was strongly encouraging him to get up and go for a short, quick, stroll to the bathroom.

"Lara," he said gently, shaking her shoulder.

"Hmm?" she murmured.

"Come on sweetheart, time to go to bed." House wasn't sure where the endearment came from as it left his mouth, but it felt right.

"Oh." He felt the awareness slowly come to her body and bit his lip when she leaned more heavily on his leg to push herself up. She sat on the edge of the sofa rubbing her face and looking like a sleepy child. House searched for his cane, knowing he'd need it to stand up and found it fallen down the side of the couch. He stood painfully and took a moment to jiggle his leg until the feeling came back, then offered her his hand, which she took and meekly followed him into the bedroom. It seemed like she was too sleepy to remember that he was in the room. She stripped off her jeans and sweater and when she began undoing her bra, House quickly turned and headed for the bathroom, figuring he'd better get that errand done before his body's response to her bare skin made it impossible for a while.

Back in the bedroom he stripped down to his boxers, knowing he should probably at least leave his t-shirt on as he'd done last time he'd been in her bed. But from what he could see, Lara was naked, and he liked the idea of her skin against his. He got into bed and Lara instantly drew towards him.

"Cold," she muttered.

"C'mere." House put one arm out to let her burrow into his side, and then pulled her into his embrace. Sure enough, once their bodies were pressed together he could tell she was only wearing panties. Her nipples were peaked, and he could feel them rubbing against his side and chest, but the bed _was_ cold around them, so he figured it was mostly likely a physiological reaction to that. Otherwise her body was limp and relaxed in his arms; it felt as if she was already drifting back to sleep. He ran his hands over her back in what he hoped could be explained as a comforting, relaxing touch, twisting his hips slightly away from her so she couldn't accidentally discover the response she had provoked in him. It made him realise that it had been a long time since he had felt this kind of stirring – it had been a while since he'd had the interest or energy to masturbate, let alone anything else.

As his hands roamed over her, House couldn't help remembering the last time they'd lain like this: the night Grace had been conceived. And he recognised how different Lara's body felt now. She was thinner, a lot thinner; he could feel her ribs prominent under his hands, her hip bone jutting sharply into his side. The lush, ample curves that he'd admired that night were gone. Her breasts were different as well, still full and about the same size they'd been, but somehow empty, as if they, too, were thin.

It was his fault, he realised with a start. _SWS: Sex While Stupid_. He was the one who'd been too drunk to put on a condom, too drunk to even have decent sex; his performance so bad he'd been sure he hadn't been hard enough to be inside her when he came. He knew that they'd made up for it – the day they'd spent together afterwards was one of the sexual highlights of his life – but he felt it was a shame that Grace's life had more than likely sprung from that first, embarrassingly awful encounter.

Despite the fact that he was thinking about how bad their first round of sex had been, House was achingly hard. He wanted nothing more than to roll Lara on her back and lose himself inside her again. He wondered if she felt even vaguely the same way. The grey shadows of the room bored away at his eyes; he blinked, picking out the shapes of the furniture and pictures on the walls, and knew he was far from slipping back into sleep.

Lara's arm moving over his chest startled him. With her fingers she stroked his shoulders and chest in much the same rhythm that he was using to stroke her back. Otherwise her body felt the same, relaxed, limp. But obviously not asleep.

She shifted in his arms, sitting up a little in order to bring her head close to his. In the grey gloom he could make out the glimmer of her eyes, a sparkle that disappeared as her eyes closed and he felt her lips touch his in the most delicate whisper of a kiss. She pulled back and looked at him again. Funny, but he felt as if she was asking his permission, as if _she_ were the one having the lustful thoughts and he was the one who needed to be convinced. He raised one hand to her cheek, rubbing her jaw line with his thumb.

"Are you sober?" he asked quietly. He needed to know.

"Yes. I know exactly what I'm doing," she answered. The faint light in the room was enough for him to make out that she was smiling. Her hand moved lower and reached inside his boxers to encircle him, she ran her fist up and down his length and he hissed out a breath.

"Wait," he said. This was the bit he didn't want to do. The conversation that he normally never had a problem with. Hell, he talked about contraception with fifty per cent of the clinic patients he saw, who lately all seemed to be either pregnant or riddled with STDs. "I don't have a—"

"I'm on the pill." She leaned down and said it quietly into his ear before taking his earlobe between her teeth and biting gently. "For medical reasons, to regulate my cycle," she seemed to need to add. It wasn't necessary, House knew without needing to be told that she wouldn't have done it with the intentions of starting up a newly promiscuous lifestyle.

"Ah," he groaned as her fist tightened around him. His hands ran down her back and cupped her ass, squeezing and pulling her closer to him. She took her hand away from him to pull her panties down and House helped her push them away before they did the same to his boxers.

His hands went to her breasts, kneading and rolling her nipples between his fingers. He urged her to move up in the bed and she followed his request, lowering one breast to his mouth, sighing when his lips fastened around the nipple. He alternated between them, kissing, sucking and licking, enjoying listening to her breath catch, to the little noises of pleasure she made in the back of her throat.

After a while she pulled away and lay back down next to him. He leaned over her, continuing to make love to her breasts and his hand hand went between her legs. For a moment he paused, remembering what their lovemaking had created the last time they'd touched each other intimately. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing, because as his fingers delved into her hot folds she stiffened.

"Shh, it's okay," he said reassuringly, kissing her clavicle, rising to her throat and kissing her pulse. He found her entrance, relieved to find she was wet, and then rubbed her, trying a few different strokes until she breathed, "Yes, there," into his ear.

He continued touching her until her hand clutched around him again, almost too tight, rolling up from root to tip in a way that made his back arch and his cock leak.

"Oh God," he groaned. "Now, I need you now."

"Yes, yes," she murmured in agreement. Her arms wrapped around him and she tried to pull him over her.

"No," he said, "you, here." He fell back on the bed pulling her with him, reaching down to place her leg carefully over his right thigh. "It'll be better if you're on top, you can control it."

She paused, kneeling over him, her eyes bright in the darkness. Bright with tears. For a moment he wondered if she was going stop, jump off him and run away. He hadn't really given much thought to what he'd just said, it was just an instinctive call from the rational, medically trained part of his brain that never seemed to shut down, even in a situation like this. It had told him to let her direct the penetration, that way she could go as fast and as deep as she felt comfortable. But it was an unwanted reminder of why they needed to take such care in the first place.

"Oh, Lara," he said, pleading, desperate.

"Shh." She leaned down and kissed him, their tongues meeting. He felt her hips moving, fitting herself to him, rubbing her hot, wet seam over his hardness. Then her hand was between them, positioning him, and she pushed down, slowly, slowly, until he was buried almost to the hilt and she let out a breath against his lips.

"Are you okay?" he asked, unable to help himself.

"I'm perfect."

"Yes, you are."

She smiled and House smiled back.

She pushed herself up, taking more of a seated position over him, using her thighs to control how deep he went. House clenched his hands into fists, restraining himself from the desperate urge to grab her hips and slam her down on top of him. Instead, he waited, and was rewarded when she began to move, her body adjusting, her breathing shallow, almost gasps.

It only took a minute before she was rocking against him, every downward stroke accompanied by a moan of pleasure, and House was once again almost at the peak, urging her to continue.

"Yes, Lara, oh God, yeah."

He put his thumb against her for added pleasure and delighted in the keening cry of near-agony that contact immediately provoked, her body clutching and shuddering above his. He tried to focus on maintaining the pressure and continuing to thrust through her spasms until he couldn't manage to hold off any longer, coming in desperate, throaty groans that made him feel like he might have been in danger of blacking out.


	11. Chapter 11

This time when Lara woke, he was still there. She was lying on her stomach facing away from him, but she could feel him behind her, his breath gently blowing through her hair with each exhale. One arm was thrown over her, laying heavily on her back, but the weight was a comforting warmth.

She lay still for a while, staring at the wall, wondering how it had happened, wondering why life had taken her down the path it had over the past twelve months. She realised with a start that in a matter of days it would be exactly three months since Grace had died, and a few weeks after that it would be Larissa and Paul's first anniversary. And next week life would be back to what passed for normal. She lay there thinking about the week ahead and felt the gradual changes in his body and breathing that told her he was no longer asleep.

"I'm going back to work on Monday," she said, because it was what was on her mind.

"Hmm?" he said, clearly still not quite awake.

"My boss let me have my maternity leave as we'd arranged, and it doesn't end for another two weeks, but I'm well enough to go back now, so I'm starting Monday. Starting to get a little bored around here too. There's only so much crap daytime television you can watch."

"Blasphemy!" he muttered, tugging on her arm. She obeyed, twisting around in the bed to cuddle next to him. "Wash your mouth out."

They lay quiet again for a while and Lara wondered if he'd fallen asleep again.

"Lara?" he asked tentatively.

"Yeah?"

"Just so you know, I didn't plan this."

Lara tried hard to reign in her instincts, telling herself to stay calm. "Are you saying you regret it?" she asked, proud of how her voice stayed steady.

He paused. "Do you?"

"No." Lara figured it was easier to be honest.

"I don't either. I just didn't want you to think that the past weeks, my visits, have been some kind of elaborate . . . seduction."

She couldn't help grinning. Greg House planning an elaborate seduction? Why did the very idea seem preposterous? "Ah, so now I know why you put up with the crying. All for sex," she said teasingly.

"What do you think I really meant by giving you a box of tissues?"

Lara gave a little laugh. "I'd think that if you wanted to get laid there are easier and quicker ways than being my babysitter for two months."

"Possibly."

"Definitely."

"Well I do like you better since you started showering regularly again. And I like you _much_ better since you stopped crying every five minutes."

"Oh." Lara had no idea what to say. She wasn't about to apologise for crying over Grace – her little girl deserved every tear she had and more.

He must have registered her change in mood, because his arms tightened around her. "Got any bacon?" he asked lightly.

"No, but there's a diner round the corner. They do great omelettes."

"Let's go."

* * *

--

House was enjoying his week. He'd spent the rest of the weekend with Lara, eating Chinese food, watching television and they'd had sex once more. He couldn't wait for her to become more comfortable with it and get back the energy and passion he remembered. Making love slowly and sweetly was very nice, but he was aching to do it hard, desperate and frantic like they had in the hotel room.

As planned, she'd gone back to work on Monday and he'd checked in with her that evening to see how her day had gone. She sounded tired, but relaxed, and had told him that it had all gone as well as could be expected.

For now, he was planning to continue his visits to her apartment just as he had been – dropping in unannounced every few days – only he hoped that from now on they'd more frequently end up in bed. Beyond that, he didn't want to think further.

He was in the conference room with his team working on their latest patient when his easy week came to a screeching halt.

Their patient was a middle-aged father of three whom House had initially been convinced was suffering the same kind of infarction he had had. Only he wasn't, and now more blood clots had started appearing. It had been absorbing his every thought to the point that he hadn't been home for more than twenty-four hours, working non-stop, consumed by diagnosing. So much that he hadn't yet returned the call to the paediatric cardiologist in Japan – the latest cardiac specialist he had contacted for a consult on his "patient".

Deep in diagnostic discussions with his team, a vision of Paul Kimble, flustered, nervous and clearly deeply disturbed, rushing into the conference room, at first didn't register with House.

"House?"

"Go away, we're busy," House dismissed the interruption without even turning around. "Chase, what about the x-ray?"

"We've already looked at the x-ray a million times," Foreman said with an annoyed sigh.

"Yes, but—"

"House!"

House spun around, irritated beyond belief by the interruption. "What?" It was only then that House realised something serious must be going on. His "What?" had been enough to cause most mere mortals to spontaneously combust and turn into ashes on the spot. Paul Kimble simply stood there, bouncing on his heels, clearly anxious beyond the reach of House's reprimand.

"Need to talk to you, outside," he said.

House frowned. "I'm busy." He dismissed the other doctor with a wave of his hand.

"It's important."

House wavered. If it was important enough for Kimble to stand there, confident in the face of House's disinterest, perhaps it really _was_ worth taking a minute to find out what the man had to say. He tossed the whiteboard marker to Chase. "Back in five. Don't stop thinking."

Once they were in the corridor – House had learned that conversations out there were far more private than ones in his office – Kimble began talking in a rush.

"Larissa's at Lara's place. She's really worried – wants us to come over straight away. Apparently Lara's frantic, she's tearing the place apart, saying that she's lost her baby. Larissa thinks she's having a breakdown."

"What? Lara's back at work."

"It's seven pm, House. Larissa said she dropped in for dinner after work and found Lara emptying all the shelves of the bookcase."

House felt simultaneously worried and dismissive. "It's nothing, she'll be fine."

"I don' t think so House. Larissa sounded really freaked out and she asked me to bring sedatives." He displayed a couple of pre-drawn syringes in his pocket.

House had no idea why he decided to get involved, but about thirty minutes later he found himself walking into Lara's place with Kimble, having sent his team off to try a contrast MRI on their patient. He didn't know what to expect, but when they walked in, Larissa was sitting on the sofa, drinking a cup of tea. Lara could be heard in the bedroom, rummaging around as if she was packing a suitcase. The apartment looked disturbed, as if everything in the place had been picked up and put back again in a slightly different position. The bookshelf had been particularly messed up, with books still lying in piles on the floor.

Kimble rushed over to Larissa, but instead of being upset, Larissa looked angry and shook off his embrace.

"I can't do this anymore Paul. I can't. She's lost it." Her voice was a furious whisper. "I can't put myself through—" She broke off, slumping back into the sofa cushions.

Kimble looked over at House uncertainly. "Do you want to go in there, or will I?"

House shrugged. Kimble was still wearing his neatly pressed lab coat. He had a pocket protector, just like Wilson's, which made House wonder if they were some kind of departmental emblem. If it came to mollifying a disturbed patient, Kimble certainly looked more reassuringly like a doctor.

"You go," House said. "I'll block the doors in case she makes a run for it." He meant it as a joke, but no one laughed.

A moment later, Lara and Paul's voices could be heard. From the living room, it sounded like they were having a pleasant conversation. After a minute, Lara appeared, looking around the living room before picking up a shoebox that had been sitting on the table.

"Hello Greg," she said. Her voice sounded normal but her eyes were bright, an agitated intensity House had seen before in patients suffering from delusions or mania. She might look okay, but she clearly was anything but.

"Hi Lara."

"Paul wants to give me a sedative. That's fine, but I told him he has to wait until I find her." She moved restlessly, her whole body seeming unable to stay still.

"Okay," House said, still standing just inside the door, watching as she flitted around the room with abnormal, skittish energy.

"Is it a psychotic break?" Paul Kimble asked House quietly from across the room. "PTSD?"

"I can hear you," Lara said.

"I know Lara, we're just worried about you," Kimble answered.

Lara opened the shoebox that she was holding, had a quick look inside and, seeming satisfied, headed back into the bedroom.

"I thought she was getting better," Larissa said from the sofa. Her anger seemed to have dissolved and the anxious tone was back in her voice. She looked at House. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be angry, I'm just so worried . . ." House gave her a short nod to show he understood. He knew very well that Larissa's unconditional support had been a major contributor to Lara's recovery and he also knew it had come at a cost for the other woman.

House and Kimble followed Lara to the bedroom, watching her from the door. She emptied the contents of the box on to the bed which was already covered with papers, sorting through a pile of what looked like mostly receipts and bills, and although the task required only her hands it seemed like every muscle in her body twitched with the activity.

"What are you looking for?" House asked.

"Grace," Lara said simply.

"I don't think you'll find her in that box," he suggested.

Lara snorted. "Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. Good mothers don't keep their babies in shoeboxes." Halfway though examining the stack in front of her she moved over to another pile of papers that had been upended on the bed, sifting through them frenetically.

"I saw on her Sunday, just four days ago, she was fine," House said quietly to Kimble, frowning. The woman he'd eaten omelettes with in a diner had been mentally stable, making surprisingly lewd jokes about the cute young waiter who'd served them, not someone on the verge of a psychotic breakdown.

"Larissa saw her last night, she said she was a little quiet, but otherwise fine."

"I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine," Lara parroted from her position next to the bed. She continued jiggling up and down on the spot as she started on a photo album, pulling photos from their plastic slots. "Except Grace," she added gravely.

"What do you mean, you can't find Grace?" Kimble asked gently.

"She's missing."

"She died, Lara," House said firmly.

"I _know_ that."

"So what's missing?" Kimble pressed.

"Her baby."

"Grace's baby?" Kimble asked.

A frown crossed Lara's face and she pulled her hair back from her shoulders, clearly irritated and confused.

"What meds is she on?" House asked Kimble.

" A pretty hefty dose of Zoloft, but Larissa said she'd told her last night that she was feeling well enough to start cutting down. I haven't—"

"I want to have sex with you again," Lara announced, giving House a quick glance. "Only next time I want to feel it properly. I need to feel. I want to feel." She walked over to her dresser, pulled out a heavy knit sweater and put it on. "Cold," she said, and shivered.

House sighed. "Lara please don't tell me you stopped taking your meds this week because you want to have better sex."

"Of course not, I didn't _stop_, I'm not an _idiot_." She went back to her pile of papers and picked up a stack, sitting down on the floor to sort through them again. "Got to find Grace," she muttered.

To his credit, Kimble didn't say anything about what Lara had just revealed. "I just refilled her prescription on Friday," he said. "I'll go check the bathroom to see if she's stopped taking them."

House nodded. He walked over closer to Lara and sat on the bed in front of her. "What are you looking for Lara?"

"Grace," she replied again, stubbornly.

"What about Grace?"

"Her baby . . . I mean, _my_ baby . . . no." Her confusion was clearly growing and she was becoming more agitated. "The _thing_. When you have a baby . . ."

"House," Kimble called from the doorway. He held up two lots of medication. "Looks like she cut back, not completely but at least by a half. And she started taking this instead." He held up a large brown vitamin bottle.

House groaned. "St John's Wort?"

"Yep. Is it serotonin syndrome? Should we take her to the hospital?"

"Lara?" House reached out and took hold of her chin to force to her to look at him. "Did you cut back on your antidepressant meds?"

"Yes, but gradually. Only a little. _Like you're supposed to._" She sounded like a petulant child.

"Did you start taking St John's Wort?"

"Yes. In the night time, I took them both and this morning too. Lots of that one. St John, Saint John," she babbled. "Saint John. Saint George. Saint Paul. Saint Ringo. Did he have a dragon? George had a dragon." She looked at House hopefully. "Maybe the dragon can help me find Grace's baby?"

"Lara! Do you know you're not supposed to take them together?"

"They don't go together? The girl in my yoga class said it was good for you. Huh. You'd think they'd be best friends seeing as they do the same thing. Although Larissa and I are best friends but we don't do the same things. She gets married. I don't."

House sighed and let her go – she immediately jumped up from the floor and ran over to the other side of the bed to keep sorting through her papers.

"I think once the meds clear her system she'll be fine," House said tiredly to Kimble. "What meds did you bring? Benzos?" he nodded towards Kimble's pocket.

"Yep, lorazepam," he said, reaching into his pocket.

"Better get that into her, keep her warm, and we need to keep an eye on her blood pressure."

It took them a few minutes, but eventually they got Lara to stay still enough for Kimble to give her the meds. Lara refused to be put into bed, so Larissa made up a nest of pillows and blankets on the sofa that Lara reluctantly crawled into but only as long as Larissa lay with her. Paul went to the car and grabbed the kind of well-stocked medical kit that House wouldn't have dreamed of owning, pulling out a blood pressure cuff and quickly slipping it on Lara while Larissa held her arm still.

"Blood pressure's low, but not seriously," he announced. "We probably need to keep a check on it for the next few hours."

Larissa sat on the sofa with Lara in her arms. Lara was slowly calming down but had begun shivering, her teeth chattering.

"Settle down, honey, you'll be fine soon," Larissa said soothingly, rubbing Lara's arms to help keep her warm. "Paul, she's shivering."

"I know." Kimble answered. "It could be a kind of hypothermia from the drug interaction or it might be trembling from the meds we just gave her. Either way it should wear off soon. Try to get her to drink some water before she falls asleep and I'll warm up a couple of heat packs," Paul suggested, heading off into the kitchen.

Larissa nodded and held a glass of water to Lara's lips, making her sip.

House collapsed into the armchair, exhausted. He realised he'd been holding himself tensed since Paul Kimble had entered his office and his muscles were almost quivering with effort.

"I was l-l-looking for something," Lara said, her voice starting to sound drowsy.

"It's okay," Larissa said. "Drink some more."

"I've had enough." Lara pushed away the glass with a shaking hand."Need to find Grace."

"I know honey, you want Grace back."

"No. Grace's . . . _picture_."

House felt a sudden dip in his stomach. _The ultrasound photograph._ It was, at that moment, lying in a drawer of his desk.

"You lost Grace's picture?" Larissa asked.

"Uh-huh. I lost it on her _birthday_."

"We'll find it together tomorrow, okay sweetie? Sleep for now."

"Okay."

The room was silent for several minutes apart from the sound of Lara's breathing, made jagged by shivering. Once it was clear she was asleep, Larissa carefully moved herself out from the sofa, resettling her friend gently on the pillows.

"It's three months today since Grace was born," Larissa said softly.

House nodded. He knew that – he wouldn't be forgetting the date anytime soon.

Kimble walked back into the room with heat packs and tucked one near Lara's feet and the other against her back.

"Should we take her to hospital?" he asked, straightening. "She's going to need hourly obs of her blood pressure at least for a while."

House didn't want to take Lara to the hospital. For one thing, she'd have to be admitted as a psychiatric patient and that would mean a lot of explaining. His personal life, something that had so far been kept nicely quiet at the hospital, might no longer be quite so private. It also would also most likely mean the return of Dr Collins to his life. After Grace's death she'd dropped into his office every day, encouraging him to seek counselling which of course, he had never done. She'd given up after a couple of weeks, and now when he saw her in corridors or the cafeteria she gave him a pathetic, pitying stare that House hated.

"Let's wait it out and see what happens," House said.

"Okay." Kimble nodded and House was glad that Kimble seemed to be accepting his authority unquestioningly. In his mind, House thought of Kimble as a young doctor, but he realised that he was probably the same age as Wilson, in his mid-forties, no more than five or so years younger than he was himself. House no desire to battle for position as the alpha male, but it made things so much easier when he was accepted as such without query.

"You look really tired," Larissa said to him.

"Shit." House grabbed his phone. "Patient," he said as if that would explain everything.

Foreman answered and said he'd been just about to call. The patient had died before they could get him into the MRI – they were guessing that a blood clot had caused a massive stroke. Oh well, House thought, at least Mr Somethingorother wouldn't be going anywhere that night. The puzzle of what had actually killed him could wait for the morning. He told the team to go home and not worry about coming in til later the next day.

"Is your patient doing better?" Larissa asked when he got off the phone.

"Yeah, if 'dead' counts as better," House answered bluntly.

"Why don't you go grab a few hours sleep," Kimble said, nodding a head towards the bedroom. "We'll take the first shift, and then I'll wake you around midnight and you can take over."

House shrugged, it sounded like a good idea to him. Feeling exhausted beyond belief, he limped into the bedroom and swiped the stacks of papers covering the bed on to the floor. Striping to boxers and a t-shirt, he crawled under the covers and was asleep almost instantly.

* * *

--

"Greg, I mean, House, I mean . . . shit. I don't know what to call you. But you have to wake up, it's your turn."

House slowly came to as a female hand gently shook his shoulder. The events of the previous night flooded back and he was suddenly awake.

"What?" he said, sitting up, peering at Larissa Kimble in the darkness. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine. Paul's been checking her and her blood pressure is better." Larissa sat down on the edge of the bed. "It's 2am and we have to go. We've both got to be at work tomorrow. You've had almost five hours of sleep, is that enough? Can you do the rest of the night?"

House yawned, remembering that it had been his idea not to take Lara to the hospital. Back then he hadn't been thinking about this moment, or the fact that at some point he'd have to wake up every hour to take her obs. Truthfully, he had thought that the altruistic Kimbles would see through the night.

"Yeah, I guess," he said reluctantly. "Any chance of bringing her in here? At least then I don't have to get out of bed."

Larissa made an irritated noise and rolled her eyes at him, but left and a moment later, Paul Kimble was carrying an unconscious Lara into the bedroom. House pulled back the covers and helped him settle her into the bed and then Larissa walked in with the blood pressure cuff and handed it to House.

"She was at one-ten over seventy – I just checked," Kimble said.

"Okay." House grabbed his cell phone and set an alarm for an hour's time.

"Good night." The very tired-looking couple left the bedroom and House heard the front door close.

An hour later, he was rudely awakened by the shrill tone of his phone. He dutifully checked Lara's blood pressure and, seeing as it was exactly as it had been an hour previous, decided that she was out of danger. He didn't bother setting any further alarm, simply snuggled himself around her soft body and went back to sleep.

He woke up again when the sun was streaming in between cracks in the curtains and realised it must be well into the morning. He stirred in the bed and it took a moment for him to remember where he was, what had happened and why he still felt like he needed a week's worth of sleep. A moment after that he realised that the severely drug-affected Lara was no longer in bed with him.

As quickly as he could possibly move first thing in the morning – which wasn't particularly fast, especially not with the floor littered with slippery papers – House got up and made his way into the living room. Lara was lying on the floor, face down, curled up in the fetal position.

His stomach dropped. If she was still psychotic, he'd obviously been wrong about the drug interaction explaining her behaviour – it was something much worse.

"Good morning," she said, her voice muffled by her position.

"What are you doing?" House asked, frantically trying to remember where he'd left his cell phone.

"Child's pose," she answered. "And, salute to the sun." She stretched her body up on to all fours, arching her back like a cat, and then straightened one leg out into a lunge, her head thrown back to look up at the ceiling.

"What the hell is that?"

"Yoga."

"Fuck," House muttered under his breath, the fear he'd felt instantly transforming into anger. He had no idea what to do with it, so he went into the kitchen and abused the coffee maker, both physically and verbally, into making him a cup of extremely strong java.

Lara joined him in the kitchen a few minutes later.

"I don't remember much of yesterday and I feel all spaced out. What happened to this place? Who made all the mess?" Lara asked, helping herself to a cup of coffee.

"You did. You need to call in sick and go see your psychiatrist."

Lara sat opposite him, looking a hundred times better than she had the day before, although he could tell she was still a little vague from the injection Kimble had given her.

"Why?"

"You gave yourself serotonergic toxicity by taking St John's Wort with your Zoloft, that's why. And you shouldn't have been cutting back the Zoloft without medical supervision," House said, his voice hard and snappy.

"Oh." Lara was clearly too zoned out to be affected by his snarl.

"Don't take any more meds – and don't take any of that herbal shit – until you've seen your doctor. Tell them what you did with your medication and that you started taking the herbs. Oh, and that Kimble gave you a shot of lorazepam."

"Were Larissa and Paul here?"

"Yeah, you've got better friends than you deserve," House muttered and Lara immediately looked hurt. He waved a hand dismissively. "I didn't mean that. All I mean is, go to the psychiatrist. Okay?"

"Yes." Lara wandered off and House heard her call and make the appointment and then heard her calling work. House wondered what he should be doing – what he was doing there in the first place. _Should he be the one to make the appointment? Should he be calling her work for her? Should he be taking the day off to go with her to the psychiatrist's? _The coffee felt curdled in his stomach and he didn't know why.

"My boss said she sent me home early yesterday because I got very upset about someone stealing my stapler," Lara said when she returned to the kitchen.

House snorted a laugh and Lara giggled a little. "It does sound kinda funny," she admitted. "I don't remember it at all."

"I have to go to work. Can you get yourself a cab to and from the hospital?"

"Yes. And it looks like I'm going to be cleaning up here all day too."

House got up and got dressed, realising that he'd have to go home again before going in to the hospital – he'd been in the same clothes for almost forty-eight hours.

"Lara?" he asked, just as he was leaving. He hadn't kissed her or hugged her, but she hadn't seemed to notice. "If you're missing the ultrasound picture of Grace, I just wanted to tell you that I have it."

"You've got it? Why?"

"I took it to see if I could find out what was wrong with her heart."

"Oh." Lara gave him a sad smile. "And did you?"

"Not yet," he muttered.

"It doesn't really matter does it?"

"I guess." He shrugged and left.

Later that afternoon, Lara called and apologised, thanking him profusely for what he and the Kimbles had done. The psychiatrist had given her a serious talking to about her carelessness with the drugs. And, she told him, had helped her work on a schedule for reducing her antidepressants so she could start feeling like herself. And start _feeling like_ _feeling him_ too, she added, in a way that under any other circumstances would have had his blood pumping.

House hung up the phone and sighed.


	12. Chapter 12

For the next week, House had three successive patients that kept him fully occupied at the hospital. He and Lara spoke on the phone occasionally, she was back at work and on a medically supervised medication regime, but he didn't have time to actually visit. At least, that's what he told himself.

The following week Lara went on a book tour with an author – her first since she'd been back to work. It was only to the west coast, just for five days, but House couldn't believe how often she was in his thoughts. He worried about her travelling, he worried about her medication, he worried if she might be working too hard and stressing her still-recovering body. When she called the afternoon she got back, sounding tired but bright and bubbly, House was so relieved he had to cover it by being extremely curt on the phone. He told himself not to think about her, but the more he told himself that, the more he couldn't get her out of his mind.

That evening he went over to her place unannounced and she was clearly happy to see him. They ate an average dinner of Chinese takeout while Lara told him all about her trip, and then sat on the sofa to watch TV. After a while House began to relax and it started to feel like one of those peaceful nights they'd shared so many times before. He remembered how they'd got here, the fact that he liked this . . . this almost _domestic_ arrangement.

He liked _her_.

Then, without warning, Lara went down on him, finally giving him the blow job he'd requested almost a year earlier. It was good, very good, and House fisted his hands in her hair and called out his release in a loud, guttural cry, which surprised the hell out of both of them. Lara declined a reciprocal performance, claiming she wanted to wait until she was on a lower dose of meds and felt more aroused. That made House feel all sorts of uncomfortable emotions, the primary one being guilt, and his previous sense of calm deserted him. Not long after he got up and left.

It was another week before they saw each other again – both claiming work pressure, both, House thought, probably lying. At least he knew he was.

Larissa and Paul had invited them to dinner at their place. House had no interest in being part of some couples-dinner-party-scene, but when Lara called and invited him to come along, saying Paul and Larissa had specifically asked him to come too, he found himself saying yes. That night he picked her up and when she got in the car, his anxiety and confusion settled for a moment, as if her mere presence was some kind of balm.

Her smile was radiant; House couldn't help thinking that it was Lara from the wedding getting into his car.

"Hey handsome," she said with a cheeky grin, tucking a bottle of wine on the floor near her feet.

"Hey," he said in reply. He'd been expecting an awkward greeting, accusatory silence about his absence from her life for a week. But then he realised that she didn't know that he'd been lying about being busy; that he'd really been sitting at home alone on his sofa feeling like crap. She could well have been busy herself and trustingly and naively accepted his invented, but desperately ill, patient.

She leaned over and kissed him, starting with a quick peck before putting her hand to his neck and delving into his mouth. House, shocked, sat still for a moment before responding, his tongue seeking hers, his hand leaving the gearstick to squeeze her thigh. He felt like a teenager, necking in the car, and it was the _best feeling_, the happiest he'd felt in weeks. He wondered why on earth he'd been staying away from her. _What was it that made him suspicious of anything that made him feel good?_ He realised belatedly that her declaration that she'd cut down her meds because of him had affected him more than he'd first thought. It meant she was thinking about him, making decisions based on him being part of her life. It had spooked him. But now, with her kisses, her hand resting lightly on his thigh, he rapidly got over it.

Eventually she pulled back. "I knew there was a reason I hadn't put my lipstick on yet," she said with a giggle.

"I knew there was a reason I didn't want to go to this dinner," House said, turning off the car's ignition. "Come on, let's go inside, give your new libido a test run."

"Now Greg," she said, waggling a finger at him, her tone mock schoolmarm. "We promised Larissa and Paul we'd have dinner with them."

"I did no such thing!" House protested.

Lara leaned in and kissed his ear. "I'm feeling better," she whispered. "_Much_ more like my usual self. I'd really like to explore _how much_, but after dinner. I'm hungry." She sat back and gave him a wink.

House groaned. "You really want to go to this dinner?"

"Yes, come on, we'll be late."

Reluctantly House restarted the car and followed Lara's directions to the Kimbles residence which turned out to be a very large faux-Georgian, McMansion-style home. House shrugged. _There was no accounting for taste. _

His good mood lasted all the way inside, through the greetings and even to sitting at an overly done-up table, white taper candles and all. But when he saw Larissa Kimble pour herself soda water, his contentment vanished. He instantly realised why they were having this meal and why he'd particularly been invited.

It was going to be his job, tonight, to clean up the pieces.

He groaned inwardly. _Was he going to be paying for one night of careless sex for the rest of his life? _The answer came deep and resonant. _Yes. _

As evenings went, if House hadn't been so preoccupied with waiting for the announcement that would confirm his suspicions, it would have been classified as _pleasant_. Lara gave him the occasional odd look, wondering why he'd become so quiet, but other than that, it had all gone smoothly. Then, having organised coffee for everyone, Larissa sat down at the table again and took her husband's hand in hers. They shared a glance and House knew this was it. He resisted the urge to put his head in his hands.

"Well," Larissa cleared her throat, she was obviously nervous. Her hand shook a little as she picked up her drink and took a sip. "We've got something to tell you and it's really difficult . . ."

Lara frowned, but then gave her friend an encouraging smile. House saw the realisation begin to dawn across her face.

"I know the timing's not great, but then we weren't sure if it was going to happen at all," Larissa continued, babbling. "After that night at your place – you remember, when we watched that TV marathon and drank all that wine? We think that's when it happened, either that or on our anniversary night, we got home and—"

House couldn't hold in his groan of disgust, he did _not_ want to hear the details of the conception. Larissa looked at him sharply and broke off.

"Well, anyway. I had it confirmed this week, and I'm due on the fifth of June. Of course it's still really early and we'd prefer it if you didn't tell anyone else for a while just in case, but I just couldn't wait to tell you."

House had to hand it to her, Larissa had managed to make her announcement without once using the words "pregnant" or "baby".

Lara's eyes filled with tears but she smiled broadly. "I'm so happy for you," she said. "For you both."

The women got up and hugged and then Lara hugged Paul. House figured he was new enough to their friendship that he could get away with sinking sullenly into his chair and frowning at them all.

His frown lasted all the way through another thirty minutes of polite conversation before Lara yawned and nudged him. "Time to go home?"

House didn't miss the grimace Paul Kimble gave him when they shook hands in farewell. It was clearly a sympathetic smile laced with a strong "_glad I'm not you_"flavour. _Bastard. _

* * *

--

Lara was subdued in the car on the way home. They walked inside and House waited for it – screaming, crying, yelling, whatever it was going to be.

"Would you like some tea? I can't handle more coffee, but I'm going to have some tea," Lara asked, kicking off her heels and bustling about in the kitchen.

"Sure," House said, settling on the sofa. "But I'll have a whisky on the side too." He'd been thinking about dropping Lara off and not even coming inside. But something, perhaps manners, perhaps plain old curiosity, compelled him to park the car. Then something dawned, a further deepening of the realisation he'd had in the car, knowledge that he'd been avoiding getting specific about. He actually _cared for Lara_ and _wanted_ to make sure she was okay. That was the feeling that had confused him after her serotonin syndrome attack, the reason he'd worried about her while she was away, the thing that made him feel a sense of guilt about the pregnancy, its affect on Lara's health, Grace, her death. If he didn't care, it wouldn't matter. None of it.

Shocked, he sank heavily down on to the sofa and shook his head. _For someone so clever, sometimes he could be really dumb. _

After a few minutes organising their drinks, Lara sat down on the sofa next to him. She'd poured them each measures of Scotch and made a pot of some kind of minty-smelling tea.

House downed his alcoholic drink in one and the alcohol helped to calm his stunned amazement at his own mental revelation. "So, how are you?" he asked, shifting his focus to Lara.

"Good." She smiled, a fake, bright smile.

"Bullshit."

Lara shrugged and let the false expression fade. "Okay, less than good. I wasn't expecting that."

"No kidding."

"And I am happy for her, and for Paul, genuinely. It's just . . ." She sighed.

"Are you gonna cry?"

"I might," Lara said, her bottom lip trembling. "Will you leave if I do?"

"How long do you think it'll go for?"

Lara managed a weak laugh. "It's hard to say."

"Do you think you'll feel like some horizontal mambo afterwards?"

"I doubt it. Sorry." A couple of tears broke the wells in her eyes and traced down her cheeks. "It's okay, you can go." She smiled at him, a watery half-grin this time. "I know this isn't what you signed up for."

House was astonished by the swell of emotions he felt. She was letting him off the hook, letting him out of doing the very thing he despised and dreaded. And because she had, he realised he couldn't. He couldn't walk out on her.

"Nah, it's okay. Off you go."

Having been granted permission, Lara crumpled into a sob. She buried her face in his shirt, grabbing bunches of it in her fists. Without disturbing her, House leaned forward and picked up the whisky she'd poured for herself and then sat back and began sipping it. Lara cried into his chest, and he stared at the darkened television screen, waiting it out. Every now and then his hand would find its way to her back and he'd rub her gently, realise what he was doing, and stop. But somehow his arm kept forgetting that he didn't know how to comfort someone who was crying and kept doing it. Her sobs were harsh, the kind he knew would leave her with a headache and sore throat, and – from the feel of his shirt – dehydrated too. Once she calmed down he'd get her some water, a couple of Tylenol, put her to bed and maybe he'd watch some TV until he was tired enough to sleep.

After about five minutes Lara sniffed loudly and House could tell she was trying to get control of her breathing – it had been far shorter than he'd expected. He noticed a box of tissues on a nearby table and with a long stretch was able to grab a handful and hand them to her, just so she didn't use his shirt instead. Tears were fine, he figured, snot was not.

Lara took the tissues and cleaned her face, sitting up again, her breathing hitching. She reached out for the lukewarm cup of herb tea and drained it before collapsing back on the couch.

"You know . . ." she began, but then her voice cracked and she had to clear her throat and blow her nose again before she could continue. "You know how people say a good cry can make you feel better?"

"So I've heard." House wasn't much of a crier. He in fact, couldn't clearly remember the last time he'd honest-to-God cried. It would have been in the early days after the infarction, because of the pain, and crying would have done absolutely nothing to lessen that.

"Well, I've never thought that was true, except for now. I actually do feel better."

Lara sat back into the sofa and curled her feet underneath her, lost in thought. For the first time since Grace's death, she'd cried about something, let it out, and it was gone. She checked the back of her mind for the cruel, shadowy thing, the darkness that had threatened to overwhelm her and leave her without any shred of herself left. It wasn't there anymore. Sure, there were clouds, there would always be a dark patch in her life because something had happened to her that shouldn't happen to anyone. But for the first time she could remember, she felt a sense of lightness, as if there was no longer a large black dog draped over her shoulders.

"That's good," House said.

"It's changed," she said, wondering how to explain what she was feeling.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean . . . I can think about Grace, now. At first I couldn't think about her at all because it hurt so much. And then when I _didn't _ think about her, that hurt. But now I feel like I'm . . ." she searched for the right word, ". . . _integrated_. Like she's part of me, and we can exist together like that."

House frowned at her and Lara noticed his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. She wondered about his grief, about how he was feeling. Had his pain been anything like hers? Had he come to this same sense of calm already? Ages ago? She knew, somehow, that he wouldn't tell her if she asked. It was something he'd have to volunteer.

There was one thing that still ate away at her. She wasn't sure if confessing it would make it easier to bear, and wondered if he was the right person to be seeking absolution from anyway. But, as if a damn had burst, Lara couldn't hold the words in.

"My biggest sadness – biggest regret – is that I wasn't there when she died. I'd been with her that whole morning because they were concerned about her breathing, but then she seemed to be doing better so I went back to my room to take a nap. I'll never forgive myself for that. I was looking out for myself, yet again. I was so tired."

"Lara," he said, clearly exasperated. She wondered if she'd pushed his unusual show of patience too far. "Of course you were tired. You'd just given birth; you were stressed out by Grace's health. It's perfectly acceptable for you to want to take a nap. And just in case you were wondering, I am _not_ going to spend all night here justifying your actions to you. It's boring and unnecessary."

She ignored his last comment. "She was alone. That's all."

House sighed. "I was there," he said quietly.

Lara's head flicked up in surprise. "What?"

"I was there; I was in the NICU when . . . when she died."

"Oh God," Lara felt her throat constrict and she couldn't help the sob that escaped her lips.

"I wasn't treating her; there was a whole team of doctors around her, trying to save her. But I was there. I . . . _watched_." Lara was so caught up in his revelation, she missed the tone of derision in House's voice. He sounded disgusted with himself.

It had never occurred to her that that might have been possible, that Grace's father had been there, with her, in the last moments of her life.

"Greg," she said, her voice a whisper. "You were with her."

"I wasn't holding her hand or anything."

"No, but you were there for her." _There was someone with her, someone who loved her, even if he hadn't realised it at the time. He'd never say it, but she knew he did, with a certainty that she could only describe as mother's instinct. _

Lara's eyes pooled with tears again and her breath caught. She knelt up on the couch and leaned into him, pressing her lips against his in what was sort of a kiss and sort of a desperate prayer of thanksgiving. His lips parted and Lara felt his chest hitch, and then they were kissing, desperate and hungry, and Lara was sure it wasn't just her face that was wet.

The next morning when Lara woke up with House by her side, she felt a sense of peace that had been missing from her life for a very long time.

* * *

--

**A/N: **This is the second last chapter! Thanks so much for your lovely reviews -- they keep me writing!


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Final chapter! Thanks again everyone for your kind reviews. I very much appreciate you taking the time to leave me a few words of encouragement! If you've been lurking to date, this is your last chance to give me a little love!

* * *

--

Wilson was in his office seeing out his last patient of the day, a tiny, frail woman who was about to attempt one last ditch round of chemotherapy, when he realised the shouting was still going on. He'd become aware of it about halfway through the appointment, but then raised voices from next door were nothing new – or unexpected. However it wasn't normal for them to go for this long. Curiosity made him leave his notes for later and head down the corridor to see what was going on.

He was somewhat surprised to find House's team all sitting quietly in the conference room. The shouting was coming from House's office, where House stood, behind his desk, yelling into the phone.

Wilson stuck his head into the conference room.

"What's going on?"

Foreman rolled his eyes, Chase didn't look up from his crossword, and Cameron gave him a worried look.

"He's on the phone to a cardiologist from Chicago. They've been arguing for half an hour," she said.

"What about?"

"A patient, I think,"

"What do you mean, _you think_?"

"Our current patient has kidney failure, a swollen liver, migraine headaches and has lost his hearing," Foreman said exasperatedly. "The one thing he _doesn't have_ is anything wrong with his heart."

Wilson shrugged. "Maybe I'll see what's going on."

"Better suit up, Chase got scorched earlier for trying to interrupt," Foreman said.

Wilson grimaced. "Thanks. Noted."

He made his way around to the office door and paused a moment before entering. The yelling continued and it was clear the argument was about a diagnosis.

"What do you mean fluid around the heart? There was no fluid detected by the ultrasound and no—" The other party obviously interrupted at that point and House let them speak for barely five seconds. "—You're a moron! What do you think—"

Wilson took a deep breath and walked into the office. He tried to make eye contact with House, but although he could see that the other man was aware of his presence, he was choosing to ignore him. That was fine. Wilson had been yelled at by House like this before – that sucked. Listening to him do it to someone else could be kind of entertaining.

"Abnormal coronary artery? I didn't see that on any of the reports—" House finally looked at Wilson and rolled his eyes. Wilson smiled, now he was part of it. It was like being back in grade school when a weaker child was being picked on – there was always an element of malicious satisfaction in being part of the bully's team.

"_Of course_ I know it's often undetected, but I doubt it would go unnoticed in an _autopsy_. They generally get a _real close look_ at the heart then."

Wilson frowned. _Autopsy?_

"Fine!" House bellowed, holding the phone away from his ear in order to better yell directly into the mouthpiece. "And I'm cancelling my subscription to JACC. With morons like you on the editorial board, if I want to know about chests I might as well read Playboy!"

House threw the phone back into its cradle with venom. His eyes flashed with anger and a vein clearly pulsed in his temple. He fell back into his chair, breathing heavily.

"House, calm down, you're going to have a stroke!" Wilson said, honestly concerned. "Your blood pressure must be through the roof!"

"I need a drink," House muttered. "Fucking idiot surgeons. What would they know?"

"You need to calm down."

House took a few deep breaths and then sprang up from his chair and began stuffing his iPod and a few other accoutrements into his backpack. He opened a desk drawer and grabbed something from inside that he shoved into the inside pocket of his jacket. Once that was done he opened the adjoining door to the conference room and barked a few commands to his team before he opened his office door and headed out into the corridor.

"You coming?" he said irritably.

Wilson stood up, confused, but curious to find out what was going on. "Sure. I just have to grab my things."

Wilson was quick in gathering up his belongings and shutting down his computer, he could just about feel the vibrations of House's impatient foot-tapping from the corridor.

The trip to the bar was conducted in silence, Wilson surprised that House chose the grimy, dark watering hole around the corner from the hospital. Not because it was grimy and dark, but its proximity to the hospital made it less than desirable by House's usual standards. _He must really need that drink._

"Whisky?" Wilson asked.

"Double," House answered, heading straight for a booth along one wall.

House took a seat and sank into the booth, his mood filthier than the mouldy corner where the vinyl of the seat met the timber surrounds of the frame. He was angry, yes, in the way that only idiots could truly raise his ire, but it was more than that. Frustration, irritation, and something dark, wrong and unnameable that was eating away at his gut. Had been for a long time, now. Ever since—

"Here you go." Wilson slid their drinks onto the table and flopped into the other side of the booth heavily. "So what was it that some cardiologist did to deserve the five-star House treatment?"

"Forget it," House muttered.

"You disagreed over a diagnosis," Wilson mused, "but then that's a daily occurrence for you. So what's different this time? Sounded like you were talking about an autopsy, so maybe he . . ."

House could see as awareness dawned, Wilson's jaw going slack, his eyes widening in disbelief and then what appeared to be a combination of embarrassment and shame.

"House, are you still trying to diagnose _Grace_?"

House shrugged. "I guess." In a way he wondered why it had taken so long for someone to cotton on to what he was doing. If not Wilson then Cuddy, if only because of the international phone bill he was racking up consulting all these so-called specialists.

"Oh House, I'm sorry, I didn't realise . . ."

House shrugged again. It wasn't like he wanted to make a big deal out of it. He just wanted _answers_.

"I should have paid more attention, I should have been more aware of how you were feeling," Wilson went on.

House grimaced, Wilson's self-flagellation was fun to watch, but he didn't have the patience for it at that moment. He quickly downed the scotch.

"So who can I try next?" House asked. "I've burned bridges in cardiology on almost every continent. Know anyone good in South America?"

"House," Wilson sighed and House knew he was in for a lecture. He wasn't quite sure why he'd let Wilson listen in, why he'd let him figure out what was going on. Perhaps he was getting tired of it. Tired of the seemingly never-ending search for a solution.

_That had never happened before._

"House, I thought you agreed? Grace's death was one of those things; those awful, tragic things that don't necessarily have any explanation. I thought we'd decided this was finished with."

"_You_ might have."

"Do you honestly think anything you could have done would have made a difference?"

"I could have . . ." House blew out a breath impatiently. He wasn't going to do this. He wasn't going to go on in a self-pitying rant like some pathetic idiot.

And yet.

He couldn't shut up the voice in his head. _If only he'd taken his stethoscope – hell, grabbed one from one of those idiots who had them hanging around their necks all the time – and listened to her chest, taken the time to listen, _really_ listen, the way no-one else had. _

"House? Listen to me for once. You've never been a 'what if' kind of guy. You treat a patient, if it works great, if it doesn't, you jump straight into figuring out what's next. You don't stop to chastise yourself for getting it wrong the first time. That's what makes you so good at what you do. And such a pain in the ass to work with," he added with a chuckle. Then his expression sobered. "So I don't get what's with this guilt about Grace. You weren't her doctor – you couldn't have been, even if you'd wanted to. We won't ever know if some diagnosis, some different kind of treatment, might have made a difference. Because it happened House. She's gone. It's too late."

House was silent. In truth, he was a little shocked by Wilson's harsh words. He'd expected platitudes, reassurance, sympathy, not to be told the stark reality. Wilson used the word_ guilt. Was that what it was?_

"Get me another drink," he ordered, because Wilson looked set to continue his diatribe.

Wilson shook his head but did what he was told, returning with two beers. House was about to complain about the substitution of beer for a strong single malt, but Wilson didn't give him a chance.

"How is Lara doing?"

House thought about it. Without realising he was doing so, he smiled. "Actually she's pretty good. She's still sad, has her moments, but I think she's really worked through things. She's—" _Getting on with her life,_ House had been about to say. What did that mean for him?

"And what about you?" Wilson asked, in unknowing echo of House's thoughts.

"I never had a life in the first place Wilson, you know that." The jape was the only way House could find to respond.

Wilson gave him a wry smile. "House, I don't know if you realise it or not, but you have more of a life now than you did before. At least, I'm figuring that from the fact that you're far less available for drinking. And, sometimes, you even seem to look forward to leaving work."

House snorted. That wasn't true. _Was it?_ Uncomfortable, he changed the subject. "I caught Cameron and Chase looking—"

"House, you have to promise me you'll stop harassing cardiologists. At some point you'll end up rubbing the wrong person the wrong way. Then they'll make an official complaint. Cuddy will get involved and it'll all get messy."

"Since when did you care about . . ." With a start, House realised that he didn't want to be talking to Wilson about this. He wasn't the one who understood – who _really_ understood.

"Thanks Wilson, but I have to go." House felt as if some pieces of the puzzle had clicked into place. Not all of them, but enough.

"Go where?" House could tell from his friend's voice that he was still concerned.

"I have to go see Lara."

"Oh."

It was funny, House caught the tiniest whisper of jealousy from Wilson. Perhaps he was upset that, for once, he wasn't the solution or saviour to House's problems. House thought he probably should be glad of the respite.

"Up for a drink tomorrow night instead?" he asked, offering an olive branch.

Wilson smiled. "Sure. Say hi to Lara from me."

* * *

--

Not really sure why, on the way to Lara's place House stopped at a florist shop and bought a large sheath of pale pink roses. Something about the petals reminded him of the velvet softness of Grace's skin.

He walked awkwardly to Lara's door, balancing the flowers in one hand, and knocked.

Lara was surprised to see him, but stepped back to let him in. "I'm just in the middle of baking a cake for Larissa's—"

"Here," he said, roughly pushing the flowers into her arms.

"Oh!" She looked down at them and smiled, unknowingly doing exactly what he had done in the flower shop moments ago – she rubbed a petal between her fingers, testing the smoothness. "Thank you, they're beautiful."

"Do you want to have more babies?" he asked bluntly.

"Uh," Lara looked at him, confused, then shook her head slightly. "I think you'd better come in."

Belatedly House realised he was still standing on the front step, not even inside the apartment yet. _It was just that he had so many important things to say. _He followed her inside and sat down in his favourite armchair.

"Just let me finish something in the kitchen and I'll be right back." Lara put the flowers down on the table and disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, returning with a glass of water. "Here, you look like you could use this."

"Thanks." House took the water and drained it, then watched as she sat down on the sofa nearby. He pierced her with his glance, wanting, _needing_, her answer.

"What . . . ?" Lara began, clearly wanting to know the _why_ behind the question, but something in his expression obviously made her clearly think the better of it. He wanted answers, not more questions. "No, I don't want to have another baby. I didn't want to have children at all and that's one of the things that made everything so hard for me. I felt guilty, because when Grace died it felt like punishment for not wanting her enough in the first place. Greg, you have to believe me, I loved her more than life itself and if I could swap my life for hers I'd do it in a second. But no, no more babies. Grace is my one and only." Her eyes welled with tears, but she blinked them back. "I do want to be the best Aunt that Larissa and Paul's baby has ever seen. You know, the kind that lets the kid eat junk food and watch all the TV that her parents won't."

House sat mute for a while, letting her words sink in. "I understand."

"I know you do." Lara gave him a watery smile.

"I need to live here, or I need you to live with me," he said abruptly.

"O-k-a-a-ay."

"I realised that I feel better when you're around. Even if you are crying."

Lara gave a short laugh. "You can be decisive when you want, can't you?"

"Yes." He reached into his jacket and pulled out the ultrasound photograph. "Here. I'm sorry I took it without asking."

"Did it help?" she asked, taking it from him and looking down at it with a sad smile.

"No. No, it did not. It's back to the drawing board." House grimaced. "Again. There's a guy I've heard about in Cairo, he wrote a journal article about cardio-pulmonary disease in infants. He might be worth a try."

"Cairo?"

"Well so far I've tried London, Berlin, Chicago, New York, Johannesburg, Sydney, and Tokyo. I have to look further afield, outside the usual hubs."

Lara rose from the sofa and put the ultrasound photo on the table next to the flowers. Then she went to his chair and sat on the floor at his feet, taking his hand in hers and staring up into his frowning eyes. "Greg, you need to stop," she said quietly.

"I need to _know_."

"Why? What will it change?"

"It will change how I feel," he said stubbornly. "It will . . . end it."

"No, it won't."

"I need to know," he repeated. "So I can stop thinking about it," he added quietly.

"You won't. Knowing or not knowing, you won't stop thinking about her. And you shouldn't. She was your little girl, Greg. I know it's my fault you didn't have more time with her, and I'll regret that for the rest of my life, but she'll always be part of you."

House sat quietly, thinking for a moment. Then he waved Lara's hand away to get up and pace the small living area.

"Death is random and meaningless," he said after a while. "I know that. I've seen it too many times not to know that. I just . . . I hate that her death was meaningless. Pointless. Her life brought her nothing."

"Oh Greg," Lara said, shaking her head. She stood up and faced him, stopping him mid-pace with her hands on his chest. "Her life wasn't meaningless. It was the fullest life someone could possibly have in the short time she was with us. She was loved by two people. She gave us a daughter we'll never forget. And . . . she brought us together."

House looked down into Lara's face.

"But—" he began.

She reached up and put a finger against his lips. "Shh. Wait. Think about what I just said. I'm gonna go get the cake out the oven and I'll be right back. Then I want to ask you something – there's a job I have to do and I need your help." She grabbed his hand and led him over to the chair, pushing his chest lightly to encourage him to sit down. He did, and then watched as she disappeared into the kitchen.

House let out a long breath and with a sinking feeling he began to realise that Lara was right. What was worse, he realised that he'd known it all along.

Knowing what killed Grace, what caused her death, wouldn't be some miracle that would erase the entire incident from his life. Knowing wouldn't make the pain go away. It would be just another piece of information about the tiny baby whose arrival had spread long and deep ripples into every part of his life.

And Wilson was right. She was gone. _What ifs_ and _maybes_ were pointless. It would be hard, but he was going to have to let it go. This puzzle, perhaps the most important of his life, would have to be left unsolved.

_Could it be? That the great Dr House would leave one case file open?_

Lara returned from the kitchen and House couldn't help smiling at the smear of flour on her shirt front.

"There's something I've been putting off," she said, reaching to the top of the bookshelf and pulling down the box that House knew held all of Grace's things. "And you know how good I am at that," she added, smiling ruefully.

"What?" he asked, frowning.

Lara opened the box and carefully pulled out a smallish, dark grey, rectangular container. She smiled, a weak, tearful smile.

"Will you help me say goodbye?"

* * *

--

They took Lara's car and drove past the university, turning down Mercer Road and then into Princeton Battlefield State Park. The trees were turning, proclaiming the Fall with their reds and golds and oranges.

After parking the car, they walked a little way into the park. They passed a couple of family groups of happy picnickers, children running and yelling, adults relaxing with a glass of wine and that faint sense of disappointment that heralded the eventual return of winter. None of them had any idea of the heartbreaking ceremony House and Lara were about to undertake.

"Here?"

House nodded.

They were standing underneath a large oak tree, its branches curved elegantly overhead, leaves crackled underfoot.

The box was ugly, House thought. Its rough plastic surface gave no indication of what it contained. But then he gave himself a mental shake. It wasn't like what was inside was worth anything. It wasn't precious. It wasn't _Grace_.

Lara tried to remove the box's lid, but her fingers shook. She held it out to him. "Can you?"

House took the container and pulled the lid off. His hands were shaking too, but he tried hard to conceal it.

"What do you want to do?"

Instead of answering, Lara put her hand over his on the box and tilted it until the grey, grainy sand inside began to pour out. Together they spread the coarse dust around the base of the tree until it was lost in the earth, mingled with the dirt and the leaves and the roots and the sparse blades of grass.

"This is her tree now, it's Grace's . . ." Her voice caught and she couldn't continue.

House bent down and kissed her, their lips meeting and holding, eyes closed, each breathing life back into the other. Their kiss lasted a long while, then Lara buried her head in his shoulder and they held each other, watching as the light changed and shifted, listening to the leaves sweep against each other in the breeze, the faint chatter and laughter of the oblivious picnickers.

"Thank you," Lara whispered after a moment.

House nodded then swallowed hard. "You're right. I have to stop."

He felt Lara's head tilt slightly in a nod, then she lifted her head and kissed him again.

"I love you," Lara said, pulling back only slightly; House could feel the words as well as hear them.

"I love you too," he said against her mouth.

She stepped back a little further to look up into his eyes. "I would love to live with you, but promise me we'll never get married?" she asked, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears, grief and new-found joy.

House chuckled and pressed his lips to hers before pulling her tightly into his arms. Her cheek nuzzled against his chest and he rested his chin on the top of her head.

"No way," he said. "I hate weddings."

.

THE END


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